Had to try.... Comet C/2006 P1 McNaught

[JohnP]

Well,

Seeing it was first clear sky in ages & everybody has been talking about the comet I thought I had to give it ago.... only problem was a clear western horizon was needed so garden was a NO-NO... 2nd problem was my wife had the car so I was without transport so I had to find somewhere relatively close.. I eventually decide on Norman park in Bromley, I grabbed the Bino's, EOS300D & tripod & literally had to run about a 1.5 miles because sun was nearly set.. I half killed myself but boy was it worth it...

It's the brightess & best comet I have ever seen - You could see it with naked eye not long after sunset & when comet was close to going below horizon I would say tail looked at least 4-5 deg long... It was unbelievable & well worth the effort. I took loads of pictures but three below show it near to the horizon.

This is just a single image - ISO 400 - 1.3secs with 105mm zoom lens at f8 - Manually focused - Image acquired at 17:12

First image shows full frame picture to give you an idea of scale reduced to 800 X 533. The second image is  a full size crop of the comet & tail. In the third image I have converted to grayscale & inverted & then stretched curves/ levels etc. in order to try & show extent of tail..

I was well impressed. I even called my son Luke who was in Bromley Library & told him to catch a bus - He joined me & was gobsmacked as well.

Did anyone else capture it...

Cheers,  John

Image 1:


Image 2:


Image 3:

[Ian]

fantastic John. I took a look out this evening, but being in East London, my western horizon was at about 50 degrees.

Might try and look for it in the next couple of days along the river...

[Whitters]

Lovely shot John,
Having no internet I have missed this completely I don't even remember a mention on the Sky at Night.

[Rick]

Wow! Great shots! Unfortunately my flight landed just before sunset, and then wee got stuck in a traffic jam on the tarmac, and then the baggage took ages, so I missed last night's opportunity...

[Delphine]

Fantastic images.  Thank you for posting them on the forum.  I was hoping to see it but I was too late and anyway I have houses in the way.

[Rick]

The BBC has a selecion of other folks' pictures here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6251663.stm

[Mac]

Excelent photos.

having looked at the other photos, i must comment that yours are the best by far, expecially the negative showing the tail more clearly.

[JohnP]

Cheers to everyone for their kind comments. I took quite a few more images & have probably got enough to do a small animation (something to try on a rainy day) - anyway for now I have put together three shots to give you an idea of the 'speed of movement' I have put the approx time of capture on each image - There is only 10mins between first & last... Interesting to see movement is diagonal. I read somewhere that the comet has a hyperbolic orbit which as I understand means that once it has rounded the sun it will shoot off into space never to be seen again....

Thks again - John.

[Tony G]

John,
Excellent photos, and because of these I managed to view the comet tonight which I didn't think would be visible to us (but the photos proved me wrong)because of the weather and other factors and timed it so I would be crossing over the Dartford Bridge.
And may I say it looked good to see an object like that   knowing that we may never see it again.
So thanks again John for the encouragement.
Can't wait for the animation.

Tony G

[JohnP]

Thks Tony - Glad you got to see it - it's definitely worth making that extra effort with this one - it really is impressive..

I may give animation a go this weekend....

Cheers, John

[Mike]

Tried to see it today (last chance) but the clouds were covering about the last 3 or 4 degrees of sky so it wasn't visible. Oh well

[Rick]

Looks like it's going to be a Southern Hemisphere only object as far as favourable viewing's concerned fairly soon... :/