Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 meets M79

[MarkS]

This is a reprocess of Sunday night's data.

Canon 350D on Tak Epsilon 180ED.  30 x 60sec exposures at ISO 800

It's my first attempt at composite processing of a comet image i.e. making both the comet and star background appear static.



Mark

[Kenny]

Fantastic. I saw the comet this evening from Wimbledon Common and it looked nowhere near as good as that.

[MarkS]

I may to revisit my composition process because I've noticed that the tail is more visible in one of the intermediate stages of processing than it is in the final result:



The huge problem is that with the comet being down in the murk, the image background gradients are changing from exposure to exposure.  The background gradients also add data noise.  I'm sure it's much easier to process when you are using data shot remotely from Siding Springs in Australia!

[The Thing]

That should be in Astronomy Now, it's great. No other image I've seen so far shows the twisted tail like that.

[MarkS]

That should be in Astronomy Now, it's great. No other image I've seen so far shows the twisted tail like that.

Today's APOD (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141231.html) also shows weird but different structure to the tail.  I reckon it was taken an hour or two before mine.  Interesting how much it changes.

[Fay]

fantastic Mark!!!!!

[MarkS]

That should be in Astronomy Now, it's great. No other image I've seen so far shows the twisted tail like that.

I've sent them the new improved bigger version:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2014/lovejoy20141228v4.jpg

I'm pretty happy with the result considering it was sitting in the murk 13 degrees above the horizon (the decision to have fold down flaps on the observatory has been vindicated).  I'm really looking forward to it higher in the sky in January.

Mark

[Fay]

Great Mark, glad it is going to get higher

[MarkS]

It will be nicely placed and nicely bright for the January DSC.