Enchanted Skies
Comets, etcetera

Comet Lovejoy - Imaged from Leasburg Dam State Park
Comet Lovejoy Region of sky near Comet Lovejoy

 

Object Information                                            Imaging Details

Comet Lovejoy (C2014 Q2) is a long period comet that reached magnatude 4.5 in mid-January, 2015. The coma was barely visible by naked eye when this image was acquired. No tail was visible by eye, but a tail was clearly visible in unprocessed images.

The image was taken from ASLC's Observatory at Leasburg Dam State Park using a Canon T2i and Celestron Nexstar (C11) equipped with a Hyperstar. Transparency was excellent; seeing was OK. Wind was calm. Imaging session limited by the Moon.

Clicking the above image will bring up a higher resolution, higher quality image.

Telescope:

C11/Hyperstar
Camera:
 Canon T2i
Filter(s):
  
Misc. Optics:
  
Exposures:
 25 x 35 seconds @ ISO 1600
Guiding:
 Unguided (G11 mount)
Processing:
 Images converted to tifs with Photoshop CS5, then aligned with Nebulosity. Stacks of 4 subs each were prepared using the 'dark' layer property to remove the background stars. Six of these stacks were then aligned, combined and processed further using Photoshop. The enhanced comet image was then pasted atop one of the subs.

 Home           Galleries           Comets

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