Comet Holmes
Comet in extreme outburst

 

            

            
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 There
            has never been a comet quite like this one. This image, taken
            during the nearly full moon shows a comet exhibiting an explosive
            outburst, normally at 17th magnitude which has jumped to 2.8
            or so. Seen as a naked eye tawny star in Perseus, this fall splendor
            was only a few arc minutes in diamter and resembled the appearance
            of a planetary nebula with a strong leaden yellow coloration
            in the longer exposures. 

            
This image is
            a stack of many exposures to keep the core from blowing out,
            which happens on anything over about 5 seconds exposure. More
            on this one comming!

Lens:  12.5" f/5 Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics AP1200  
Camera:  Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO400
Exposure:  10m+60s,30s,15s,8s,4s,2s,1s
Filters:  
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  8/10, Transparency 6/10
Outside Temperature:  60F
Processing Tools:  Photoshop CS2, Maxim DSLR
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