Comet Siding Springs  C/2013 A1
in the evening sky
9/28/14

 Here is my first image of the comet which in a few weeks will be nearly impacting the planet Mars. The comet is currently around 10th magnitude, and is EXTREMELY low in southern Scorpius near the pair of stars Iota Scorpii. The seeing and transparency at 5 degrees up in the south west is very poor, but I was able to get in 10 minutes total integration time with the Stellarvue SV80s from the very corner of the balcony on the second floor of our house. I have keyed the photo becasue the comet is so dim, so you can see its position.
Select an image size for a larger view: 1290 x 960
Lens: Stellarvue / Zeiss APO at f/4.8 Platform: Televue GEM Exposure: 10m Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 1/10, Transparency 2/10 Outside Temperature: 58F Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2 HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS