Comet Lovejoy C/2017 E4
in the morning sky -with Full Moon in Sky
April 8, 2017

 
 This
            comet is just past its peak brightness around 7 - 8th magnitude,
            and shared the sky with the full moon blazing in the west. This
            shot was taken with the 6" f/3.6 Cometraker Schmidt Newtonian
            for 18 minutes of RGB frames, and had considerable issues with
            a blue background from the moon. The nicely teal colored head
            is followed by a fading fan-ray type gas tail, and a few background
            galaxies. The comet JUST cleared the observatory wall at 4:30
            and only with the six inch mounted on top of the 10 inch.
 

            
 Click
            here for a larger 1290 sized image


            
Field here
            is about 3 x2 degrees


Lens:  Meade 622 Cometracker Astrograph with Baader MPCC coma corrector
Platform:  Astrophysics AP1200 
Camera: SBIG ST10XME
Exposure:  18m
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  7/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  30F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2
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