103p 20101011 butcher

  
COMET HARTLEY 2 Date/Time of observation:- 2010 October 11/0401-0414 UT Location:- Isle of Colonsay Equipment used:- Stock Canon 40D with 200mm f/2.8 lens mounted piggy-back on Meade LX-90 8" telescope fitted to its field tripod by an equatorial wedge. Telescope polar aligned. Telescope driven but unguided. Telescope and camera powered by Mains Power. Exposure details:- Fifteen sub-exposures each 60 seconds long taken at ISO1600. Ambient temperature was 6 degrees Celsius. Processing details:- After quality control 13 sub-exposures calibrated with Dark, Flat-field and Bias master frames before being combined in Images Plus. This image was then further processed in Photoshop CS3 and Noise Ninja. North is at the top. Image cropped to give field of view of 2.5 degrees x 1.6 degrees. Narrative description:- Three days after New Moon, the Moon had set before the images were taken. The weather was cold and clear with a stiff breeze from the north east (the telescope was therefore set up to the west of my house). Due to the wind there was no dew.   Martin Butcher