Enchanted Skies

Comets, etcetera

Comet ISON - Imaged from Las Cruces, NM

Comet Ison Region near Comet Ison

 

Object Information                                            Imaging Details

Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) was going to be the 'comet of the century' or something like that. That didn't happen. In fact, about 12 days after this image was taken, the comet (which was considerably smaller than originally thought) was vaporized by the Sun. Oh well - comets are notoriously unpredictable beasts.

I took this image from my back yard using an Orion comet filter. The comet was low in the ESE, and I was fortunate to find a gap between some bushes in my yard to image through. The comet filter proved difficult to work with, and did little to cut through the city's worsening light pollution.

The comet's coma was visible through binoculars or a modest telescope. However, little or no tail was visible - at least not from town.

Telescope:

C11/Hyperstar

Camera:
Canon T2i
Filter(s):
Orion Comet filter (2")
Misc. Optics:
 
Exposures:
33 x 60 seconds @ ISO 1600
Guiding:
Unguided (G11 mount)
Processing:
Images converted to tifs with Photoshop CS5, then aligned with Nebulosity. Stacks of 6 subs each were prepared using the 'dark' layer property to remove the background stars.These stacks were then aligned, combined and processed further using Photoshop. The enhanced comet image was then pasted atop one of the subs.

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Enchanted Skies - Astrophotography by Rich Richins (all images copyright, Rich Richins)