Comet Hartley 103P
Periodic comet heading inbound

 

            
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 This comet
            now in Pegasus will brighten significantly over the next few
            months. Now at 10th magnitude, the comet exhibits a lovely green
            color, and a possible fan tail may be forming. This image was
            taken with a bright 75% moon in the sky, however it was in a
            darker part of the sky so the shot came out well. The star images
            are trailed because of the comets movement had to be tracked
            in the final image. This comet will be greatly accelerating as
            it whizzes 11 million miles from earth soon, making imaging quite
            a challenge.

            
Stay tuned for
            more shots in the next month of this celestial visitor!

Lens:  8" f/4 Newtonian Astrograph
Platform:  Astrophysics AP1200 
Exposure:  3x 5m = 15mins
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  8/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  60F
Processing Tools:  Photoshop CS2
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