Comet Panstarrs C/2011 L4
Comet in North Eastern sky before sunrise
For Monday April 8th, 2013

Uploaded 4/8/13

 
 This
            weekend for those of us in the deep southern US, the comet has
            been extremely low in the western sky after sunset, making its
            best show for those north of the Canadian border. But now after
            this weekend, the comet has RETURNED to the southern states -
            now rising before the sun, in the north east well before sun
            up. We had nearly 15 minutes this morning to view and shoot the
            comet in a dark sky, something we have up to this point had never
            done yet. 



            Weather has been extremely poor here in Arizona the past month
            too, and this morning we had one chance of clear skies before
            a monster cold front moved in later this day. (right now its
            snowing with 50mph+ wind) We are glad we did. We set up our Zeiss
            80mm astrograph on a tracking equatorial mounting on a platform
            15 feet higher than the ground as to clear the extensive pine
            forest surrounding the observatory here in Payson. This shot
            I am attaching is a total of 10 minutes of exposure time during
            the optimal dark period from 4:45 to 4:55 am MST. A canon XTi
            DSLR was used at ISO 800 with 1 minute sub frames. Images were
            flat fielded, and summed in Images Plus software. The results
            are our best shot of the comet yet from our location, and I am
            glad to be able to send this to you with the snow coming down
            in sub freezing out side temperatures here at our northern Arizona
            location at 5150 feet elevation. 



            The comet has a stunning colorful starfield as a backdrop, and
            shows both the lovely fan tail and sunward spike near the head.


            

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Lens:  80mm f/4.6 Stellarfvue / Zeiss APO
Platform:  Televue GEM
Exposure:  1 min x 10 = 10 minutes total
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  7/10, Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  40F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DSLR, Photoshop CS2

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