The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
What it was like was two weeks underwater breathing through a straw! After not seeing a clear dark sky since mid-November, we suddenly had a clear moonless night March 7. The comet was low in the west by twilight but was worth a try. I got over an hour of exposures, and was able to do the same on four other nights. Each night had a varied but non-ideal balance of moonlight, clear skies and thermal turbulence. But one looked worth processing. I was rusty with PixInsight and had a new comet-processing method to learn, which kept me chained to the computer for days. (If anyone thinks PS is challenging, I can assure you there is something worse.) It was a struggle but I am delighted with the result!
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
It would take another week to describe it! But of interest may be that the telescope and astro camera sensor are 640mm equivalent and this is cropped to about 1000mm equivalent.
Diane, this is one of the most beautiful comets I’ve seen! I really love the green hue, and I like the wispy trailing ions (?) ice (?) that go away from the core. So very beautiful.
If I read your description right, this is one night’s worth of one-hour exposure, not four nights combined? What a beautiful display of the night sky.
Thanks, @Mark_Muller! Yes, one night. A comet moves enough relative to stars that one hour on one night is a challenge. Some tedious processing is needed to create both an integrated (stacked for NR) comet and a comet less stars image which are then combined — after quite a few refinements.
Thanks, @Saundie! The new and improved processing method (in PixInsight) proved to be quite complicated, and trying to figure it out from the videos proved about 10x more complicated. But I now have a growing set of notes and the next one (in October) should be easier.
I dont know too much about imaging with a telescope, but this is definitely one of the better images of this comet that I have seen! I love the wavy texture behind the head.
Thanks, @Paul_Holdorf and @Tom_Nevesely! I was delighted I had a chance to capture it. I could still do a bit of tweaking… sometime. There were hopes it might be visible during the eclipse but it had gotten very small and dim by then, and its distance from the sun was way too far to include in the corona detail shots.
Thanks, @DeanRoyer! If/when I find time I should be able to pull put a small bit more detail, and I’m anxious to re-work the one I shot over a year ago with the newer techniques. But the processing takes almost a day – 90% of it with the computer grinding away but at least 10% of it agonizing over decisions on parameters.
