Comet McNaught Synchrones

Comet Tail Above Western Horizon

Uploaded 1/23/07

 There are few comets which have such a long and detailed tails such as this one that can be seen while the head is below the horizon. In this case, the comet is south of the sun, and cannot be seen from the northern hemisphere. We can see however the faint ends of the tail above the western horizon about 1.5h after sunset. This image was taken north of Payson with the crescent moon blazing in the western sky nearly washing the comets tail streamers out. These streamers, called synchrones are parallel bands in the tail.

Unprocessed image, with the camera tracking the stars for 2 minutes shows very faint vertical banding below the moon.

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Histogram Equalized image for showing very faint details reveals converging rays , Phoenix skyglow to lower left.

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Processed image to remove light pollution gradients shows the converging rays fairly well now.

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Instrument: Canon 17 - 40mm f/4 L lens Platform: Robotic Barndoor mount Camera: Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO800 Exposure: 2m Filters: UV Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 4/10, Transparency 8/10 Outside Temperature: 25F Processing Tools: Photoshop CS2 HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS FastCounter by bCentral