Comet Panstarrs C/2011 L4
Comet in Ursa Minor
For June 8th, 2013

Uploaded 6/9/13

 
 This
            is the deepest shot of the comet yet with our 8 inch astrograph
            up in Happy Jack under pristine dark skies. The comet has now
            faded so much, around 10th magnitude - that it was just barely
            visible in the 8 inch visually with a wide field ocular. This
            shot which still clearly reveals the anti tail as a sunward extension
            toward the Sun (to the left is West) and the normal fan tail
            is reappearing starting at the bottom right of the nucleus and
            wrapping around clockwise. This is a deep one hour accumulated
            exposure, guided on the comets head for maximum clarity as it
            traveled among the stars for an hour.
 

            

            
Conventional image, as seen by the 
camera normally. 
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Negative image, to show tails and
coma inner details better
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Heavily pushed negative image, which
reveals the full extent of the fan tails
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Color mapped image, to show the
faint outer tail extensions better
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Lens:  Orion 8" f/4 Astrograph with Baader MPC Coma Corrector
Platform:  Home made GEM
Exposure:  12 x 5m = 1 hour total
Location:  Happy Jack, Arizona
Elevation:  6800 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  7/10, Transparency 9/10
Outside Temperature:  50F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DSLR, Photoshop CS2

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