Comet Pons/Brooks
in the evening sky
9/13/24

 
 It
            is finally time to say good bye to this comet, which appears
            in our skies every 70 years. It is now headed for a perihelion
            passage, and will no longer be visible in the northern hemisphere
            after that. The southern hemisphere however will get its first
            views of this comet now. This shot is 11 minutes exposure with
            the 8" RASA and ASI071MC CMOS camera. Our new portable RASA
            imaging setup was purchased earlier this year just for such comets,
            for low horizon hugging shots are not possible from the main
            observatories locations in the pine trees. This comet was in
            the western sky, and to get that location, a new site was found
            about 20 miles north of Payson on the dump road. It has a great
            western sky and nothing to obstruct the views within a few degrees
            of the ocean type horizon. For eastern sky comet in the morning,
            the balcony deck for most cases works well, but still requires
            the portable mount to be set up. I was one of the very last ones
            in this country to get a decent shot of this comet at this time
            and we shall see whos images get published in the magazines.

            
Select an image size for a larger view:

1400 x 1200
            


Lens:  8 f/2 RASA Schmidt
Platform:  Ioptron GEM45
Exposure:  11 mins
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  4/10, Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  35F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2
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