Comet ISON Sun 3 Nov 2013

[MarkS]

Comet ISON C/2012 S1 this morning around 5am:


Canon 400D on Celestron C11 with 0.8x TSSCKorr2 reducer/flattener.  28 exposures of 30sec at ISO 800.

The wind had reduced sufficiently by this morning for the scope not to be buffeted too much. Lots of lightning in the distance over Northern France,

Larger version here:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/webdisk/ison03112013.jpg

Mark

[Mike]

Great image Mark.

What is the size of the comet compared to your previous image? Is it brighter? Tail longer?

[MarkS]

Definitely a lot brighter.  Not sure about the tail length though.

I've taken this with the bigger scope so it's not that easy to compare them.

[MarkS]

I've just done a quick magnitude estimate by totalling its flux and comparing that flux with 2 bright stars over to the right of the image which have magnitudes 9.6 and 11.3

It gives a magnitude of more or less exactly 10 - so it's still a very dim object!

My estimate agrees reasonably well with the light curve found here:
http://www.astronomie.be/alfons.diepvens/cometimages/comet/Lightcurve/C2012_S1_ISON.html

Mark

[Carole]

Well done Mark, that's looking good with the larger scope.  Also for getting up at 5am to image it!!!!

Carole

[The Thing]

Nice picture. Definitely one I'm going to have a go at one of these mornings!

I've just done a quick magnitude estimate by totalling its flux [...]

Don't tell me, you selected the area in IRIS and ran a command

[MarkS]

Don't tell me, you selected the area in IRIS and ran a command

Precisely!

[RobertM]

Precisely!

I hope so !

It's looking just like comet Lulin... but better soon I hope

[JohnP]

Super Mark - great capture & dedication... John

[julian]

Very nice Mark

[MarkS]

It's looking just like comet Lulin... but better soon I hope

Yes, it does look very similar to Lulin.  Here was Lulin through the ED80 back in Feb 2009:

[MarkS]

A complete rework of ISON - adding more data and calibrating out some background artifacts - now 77 x 30 seconds:



Larger version:  http://www.markshelley.co.uk/webdisk/ison03112013v2.jpg

Mark

[Fay]

Thats a good comet capture Mark. too low for me