Popular Post Tweedledee Posted February 8, 2016 Popular Post Share Posted February 8, 2016 After several failed attempts I finally caught up with Catalina. I also had a widefield shot scheduled with a Tak 106 which would have shown a 3 degree FOV but I got the following message back - "The telescope is offline for urgent system maintenance" This is how Catalina looked at about 2.40am this morning (actually 7.40pm yesterday evening New Mexico time). It was around 14 degrees from Polaris and the brighter stars around it are part of the large cluster Collinder 464. It will havee moved out of that cluster within a couple of days. According to Stellarium, the comet was at 6.56 magnitude. This is a 4 minute image. iTelescope T11 Mayhill, New Mexico. FOV - 54 x 36 arcminutes. Scope - 20" F6.8 Planewave Corrected Dall Kirkham working at F4.5 with reducer. No point detailing the camera since this is a jpeg at much lower resolution than the camera is capable of. Not much to look at but I'm pleased I got it, dead centre and with a satellite for extra interest ... Werisit, markyap73, Johnnyaardvark and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithysteve Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Success! ? Well done Pete! It looks great ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Great capture, especially as it is fading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted February 9, 2016 Author Share Posted February 9, 2016 Cheers Steve. Here is a longer exposure with the same equipment as above (500 seconds) done at 9.50pm 8th Feb New Mexico (4.50pm this morning 9th our time). More movement is visible in this longer exposure. Smithysteve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithysteve Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yes that's even better Pete! ? I did have a a quick glance at the Itelescope site ... Just be careful Pete, the 'dark side' has you in its sights... ?? ...think about all your eyepieces!!! ☺️? Tweedledee 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted February 9, 2016 Author Share Posted February 9, 2016 What you see above is about as near to the dark side as I'm going to get. Can't get my head around lights, darks, flats, bias, stacking, adjusting levels and stretching etc. etc, and I can't afford the tackle unless I flog my eyepieces and at least a kidney. I'll enjoy looking at other peoples superb images. Smithysteve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 Does it look like the core has split into two. To back this up there also appears two separate tails one emerging from each core. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted February 10, 2016 Author Share Posted February 10, 2016 I don't think the core has split, but the core looks elongated due to its movement over the 500 second exposure. The short exposure does show some evidence of two tails. Would need more time and some processing to bring out the tails better. It probably has an ionised gas tail pointing directly away from the sun and a dust tail dragging behind a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 On 09/02/2016 at 23:06, Tweedledee said: What you see above is about as near to the dark side as I'm going to get. Can't get my head around lights, darks, flats, bias, stacking, adjusting levels and stretching etc. etc, and I can't afford the tackle unless I flog my eyepieces and at least a kidney. I'll enjoy looking at other peoples superb images. You can download a lot of image processing stuff for free. I use Deep Sky Stacker, Microsoft ICE and GIMP. Stacking and darks aren't rocket science. I read some advice about taking at least 8 dark frames and I've found it a great help. Now flats are a different kettle of fish and a source of irritation. However, you can ignore everything except light and dark frames and let DSS do the rest. Using more dark frames has been a great improvement for me, even though I've abandoned the other stuff. Unfortunately, this is probably too late for the comet but will help you with other objects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 Thanks Phil. That is some encouragement, and I suppose there may come a day when I have loads of spare time to have a proper crack at it. But for the time being it really still is rocket science to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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