Comet Pons/Brooks
in the evening sky
4/9/24

 
 Almost
            gone now, this 4.1 magnitude comet continues to look amazing
            as it dives towards perihelion this month. It is very challenging
            at this point to get a decent image, as the bright twilight and
            horizon extinction take its toll on the comets fragile existence.
            Here I am presenting two sets of data. The first top image is
            with the RASA 8 on the GEM45 mount and has about a 2 degree field.
            The lower three images were taken about 15 feet away on a barndoor
            tracking mount with our old Canon 10D and a Sigma 18-200 zoom
            lens at various settings. You can see from these the bright sky
            situation! Jupiter and the 30 hour old moon completed the scene.

            
8" f/2 RASA

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Sigma at 28mm f/4

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Sigma at 50mm f/3.5

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Sigma at 75mm f/4

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Lens:  8 f/2 RASA Schmidt
Platform:  Ioptron GEM45
Exposure:  14 mins
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  2/10, Transparency 4/10
Outside Temperature:  45F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2
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