Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 3.5 hour tail animation 10 Jan 2015

[MarkS]

Last night (Saturday) I captured 3.5 hours of data and turned it into an animation:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1lvf37uuv8esnqu/lovejoy20150110.gif?dl=0

You probably need to select the "Download" option in order to play it.

The first half is plagued by high level thin cloud which makes the tail a bit less distinct.  This cloud also affects the apparent brightness of the comet coma. I find the changes in the tail structure quite fascinating.

Technical details:  192 frames of 60seconds each. This has been turned into a 62 frames animation by performing a running average of 7 frames i.e. each video frame is 7 minutes of data.

Enjoy!

Mark

[Edit:  changed dropbox file name from 2014 to 2015]

[Carole]

That's pretty amazing Mark, are you also going to produce a stacked image?

Carole

[MarkS]

That's pretty amazing Mark, are you also going to produce a stacked image?

When I get time - I've been a bit busy today.

[RobertM]

Looks wonderful.  The tail seems to be getting longer if I'm not mistaken.

Robert

[MarkS]

Looks wonderful.  The tail seems to be getting longer if I'm not mistaken.

Maybe - maybe not.  The tail is certainly easier to image, now the comet is well above the horizon and also  the moon is out of the way.