The final tweak on this one – after 7 months the lovely (and tiny) globular cluster M5 is back in the night sky. The comet capture last October had the camera incorrectly rotated on the tracker to include M5 nicely, and by the next night the comet had moved away from M5 and M5 was too close to the western horizon for a good capture. I had to wait for a dark, clear night when M5 was higher in the sky to capture a better star field to composite in. Using the same equipment, the stars matched exactly with the comet capture so it was easy to substitute the better star field and show the realistic rotation relative to the horizon.
And another processing finally got a better balance of stars and comet detail. The star cluster M5 shows up better, too. Kicking myself for not getting it framed better.
I have now managed better processing of the data from this night and managed to bring out more detail in the head and tail, and to show the anti-tail better. I think I could get better stars and I wonder if there is not the usual green in this comet, but I need a break for now. (There was a lot of moonlight and it might have swamped what comet color there was.) I also rotated the frame for slightly better orientation. I should have rotated the astro camera more – the comet should be pointing to more like 4:30 to 5:00.
Critique Style Requested: Standard
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Description
Shot with my astro rig (refractor telescope, astro camera, tracking) the 15th, the last night I was able to get the anti-tail. (Skies have not been favorable, with thin high clouds and ambient moonlight.) This is poorly processed but I’m putting it out anyway – I have other nights to work on. The astronauts camera was also in the wrong orientation – should have been about 90 deg CCW. M5 is in the LR corner – by the time I realized it was in the frame it was too late to recompose. There was only less than an hour total to shoot before it set into the trees. If I livelong enough I might learn enough.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Astro rig with about an hour of 30-sec exposures, processed in PixInsight.
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