Comet Lovejoy from Bromley

[Carole]

This is my first image of a comet. 
12 x 1min subs, stacked in DSS.
Modified Canon 450D
I'd like to try it again another night with a CCD camera. 

I was guiding on the comet and also did some 2 min subs, but when I tried to stack them in comet mode so the stars trailed they all but disappeared they were so faint. 

[The Thing]

That's great Carole. What lens/scope were you using?

[Fay]

ive been looking for it but cant find it!!  thats good Carole

[MarkS]

Nice picture Carole.

The colour looks good and you've definitely got some tail there.

Is it really your first image of a comet?

Mark

[Carole]

Thanks

It's your first ever image of a comet?

I did attempt to image comet Jaques last year but it was too faint to guide on, and gave up.

What lens/scope were you using

ED120 and DSLR (this is full frame BTW)

ive been looking for it but cant find it!!

I entered the co-ordinates in manually using this website:
http://www.livecometdata.com/comets/c2014-q2-comet-lovejoy/

I've stacked the 2 min subs manually as the stars were almost invisible with DSS, and Registax couldn't latch onto the comet, so I did it manually in Photoshop.  Doesn't show any more of the tail but does show the movement of the comet.

[Kenny]

Fantastic!

[Carole]

Thanks Kenny.

Carole

[Fay]

good carole, i will have to put co ordinates in next time, was still getting to grips with the DSLR again, cant believe how quick the batteries were going!! had them on a conveyor belt, charging!!

i was up to my neck and eyes in mud and I stuck to my seat in the frost!!!!

[Carole]

was still getting to grips with the DSLR again

Same here, it's a long time since I used it, apart from the widefield stuff a few days ago. 

cant believe how quick the batteries were going!!

I bought myself a cabled battery it was about £23 from Astronomiser, plugs into the 12V system.  No need to worry about charging up batteries or checking if they are going flat. 


I know what you mean about the weather though, nearly froze my wotsits off when I did this image.  But at least I am not sitting directly out in it.

Carole

[MarkS]

i will have to put co ordinates in next time

Are you using EQMOD? If so just, just load up the comet's ephemerides in the planetarium software and you'll slew straight to it every day!

[Carole]

You can also enter it in the handset of the Synscan, which is what I did.

Carole

[The Thing]

i will have to put co ordinates in next time

Are you using EQMOD? If so just, just load up the comet's ephemerides in the planetarium software and you'll slew straight to it every day!

And you can load MPC data direct into EQMOD to set a custom slew rate for the comet track. EQMOD can also slew to the object/comet once you have done this. RT(f)M
EQASCOM on YouTube: Custom Tracking via MPC ephemeris data

[Carole]

I attempted to create a movie, I've only done this once before with the aurora.
It's a bit slow.  I guided on the comet so it looks like the stars are moving instead of the comet and slide 8 is a bit dodgy. 

This comprises of 12 x 1min subs and 13 x 2min subs with roughly a 5min gap in between except when i changed the length of the subs which took longer, totalling around 38 minutes approx overall. 

Any-one got a good download link to Gif, I tried to download one, but it seemed a bit dodgy, so I went for Microsoft Movie maker which came up on the PC. 

http://youtu.be/8MurIcwzqjE

[Kenny]

This video is private Carole.

[Carole]

It's supposed to be available to any-one I give the link to.  I've changed the settings to public, can you try again please.

Carole

[MarkS]

I can see it now but 2min 41 sec is pretty slow for an animation of that type - it was ages before I saw anything move.  Make it shorter by stacking frames together.

Mark

[Carole]

2min 41 sec is pretty slow for an animation of that type

I agree, but I'm new to this sort of stuff so still faffing around and trying things out.

I've managed to make a gif file now which is much quicker, (never used Gif before).
How can I upload it?

Carole

[Fay]

I have one of those power supplies Carole for the 350D, but have enquired for one for the 600D, not had an answer yet.

[Carole]

OH how annoying that you have to have different ones for different cameras. 

Carole

[Carole]

Right let's see if I can upload a gif file animation



Yabber dabber do, I got it to work.  Managed to upload it by reducing the size of the file (making the individual frames smaller) so the gallery would accept it.

Carole

[Carole]

.... and finally, I registered the frames in Registar to keep the stars stationary and finally an animation with the comet moving instead of the stars.

Spent all morning trying to work this all out, but good lesson learned.
Looks like there is at least one frame missing, Can't remember why that happened now.

[Kenny]

These are great. So cool to see the comet moving through a starfield.