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Really superb view, not just of comet but of NLCs and finally brilliant Venus rising. Comet showed naked eye tail of around 5 deg at 01:25UT (not much longer in bins) and possibly even longer naked eye with AV. In 15x70s tail showed a lot of structure and, as Andrew said, looked very similar to that seen in images. Just a pity the Moon was around.
Morning of the 6th there were tiny gaps in the cloud and drizzle.
Morning of the 7th a bank of cloud from N-NW with tiny gaps, but huge clear bits overhead. Stood and hoped for an hour but didnt see it with binoculars nor on the SLR. 🙂
Perhaps tomorrow.
Despite that, the stillness of the predawn was wonderful.
EDIT: Eventually saw it evening of 10th. Worth the wait. Alas I fell asleep in a chair waiting for it to clear some trees for the 2am observation.
Fantastic pics and observations everyone. Here is a colour pic of mine from this morning showing the two tails. The FoV is 6.4×4.3 deg.
Excellent pictures.
As I’ve got the day off work I got up at 2am only to find the comet behind a large tree covered hill. Waited until 2:45 for the comet to clear the distant hill only to find the only patch of cloud in the sky covering the area. Such are the joys of living in a Welsh valley. Still there is always next time
Hi Nick,
The sodium emission is so intense in the spectrum that I wonder if there is any sign of a sodium tail like in Hale Bopp? I hope to take a spectrum of a cross section through the tails if the weather cooperates but a narrow band image though an Na D pass filter could be interesting. Not a common filter among amateurs though I guess. The inverse filter response is more common !
Robin
Hi Mike,
Yep definitely a little orange image of the comet complete with tail in the spectrum there.
Robin, this is a very active and probably quite large nucleus that has been strongly heated through perihelion so it would be worth searching for a possible sodium tail. I don’t have a suitable filter (all mine are designed to block Na D!) but a good challenge for others.
No secret, just lots of frames, careful focusing, very good flat fields and being in the right place at the right time. There should be lots of opportunities over the next week or so if the weather cooperates.
Here is one of my stacks from Friday/Saturday night – I went out with a few friends and we observed from dusk ’till dawn.
full image on my members page https://britastro.org/profile?id=7740
Hi Brandx. You might have uploaded the image to the site, but not embedded it into your post. You can also just attach the image file.
David. The shot with the low-level NLC is wonderful. Get it printed and framed and hang it on the wall!
Yes. I do really like that pic. The Sony 85mm FE lens is very good. The other image is APS-C crop and digi zoom!
This morning’s pics. Moon less of a problem. Some cloud at first. Another nice view in 10x50s. 10 sec shot with 50mm f/1.4 on a fixed tripod in the farmer’s field. 12 stacked for highly stretched second image. Horrendous grunting/howling noise throughout the session from the direction of the Moon…..Only sheep (as far as I know) in that direction but it sounded like an angry wildebeeste heading my way….. As soon as I had finished I got the hell out of that field ASAP….
Caught this spectrum of the comet this morning showing bright Sodium line, C2 banding and I’m guessing CN emission on far left? 20 x30s with ASI 183mm and Alpy (binned 2×2 at 2.5A/pixel).Taken with 50cm f/4 Connaught Dome at NLO.- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.