tooth_dr

I would suggest going out earlier. I shot it last night at 2am and it was fine. I'm a fair bit more north that you. Polaris is easily found, but you could set up earlier if you are concerned. I just popped my SA down, got it roughly level and placed polaris within the circle, nothing to accurate needed at 50mm. I shot with a widefield lens 28-70mm, and I think I ended up using it at about 50mm so you are good to go there. I didnt bother stacking, I wasnt sure how worthwhile it would be at 50mm, so maybe just aim for nice single shots with some foreground. I took 30 second exposures at ISO200-800 and stopped down to F4.0. I tried a few different lengths ISOs, apertures and hoped that some of them would look ok when I got home. Your lens with be at F5.6 at 55mm, so aim for ISO1600. Have fun and enjoy it, dont feel too stressed. Try to get one shot of it at the beginning, just to say you got it and then worry about any arty foreground composition shots after that! But definitely carry the gear up - if you dont you will regret it.

I have an Atik 383L and 2 QHY9s and find them great workhorses. I’ve never had a newer CMOS camera so can’t compare, but the 8mp FOV, ease of calibration and cost makes them still pretty decent, and 5.4um pixel size suits my equipment.

Yes yes yes! That’s really nice combing modern life and a comet dating back to the start of the solar system

Lovely image @Bathurst very atmospheric, and taken with a regular compact camera too! So many fantastic images on this thread.

Its losing 10 tonnes of this salty water per second. Phenomenal

Thanks Paul. Dont feel to dispondent. Tonight isnt looking too bad so fingers crossed for you. Adam

One from the night before using a 180mm lens, from the garden.

Hi What a great time to be enjoying astronomy. So many fantastic photos on the forum and the internet in general. Here is one from 2am this morning from a local beauty spot just up the road from me. "Beaghmore is a complex of early Bronze Age megalithic features, stone circles and cairns, on the south-east edge of the Sperrin Mountains. Possibly the site could mark a focal point for religious and/or social gatherings. Some archaeologists believe that the circles have been constructed in relation to the rising of the sun at the solstice, or to record the movements of the sun and moon acting as observatories for particular lunar, solar or stellar events. Three of the stone rows point to the sunrise at the time of the solstice and another is aligned towards moonrise at the same period. However, most of the remains at Beaghmore do not indicate very accurate alignments upon specific astronomical features." I used my Nikon D800E and an old Tokina 28-70mm F2.6 lens, 30s exposure on a SA mount. Thanks for looking Adam

Fantastic and as you say so much astro stuff going on. A great time for anyone wanting to get into astronomy. The comet is a lot higher for you being near the bottom of the mainland.

Hi Mark! That was at 2am, but the forecast was well wrong. I was looking from midnight and it was blanket cloud up until 1:50am Thanks! My secret is to take several photos in the hope that one is salvageable lol Thanks Philip 👍🏻

I will look into that too, cheers!

It doesnt sound like a S@N thing was my thinking! Time does surely fly by, any time someone mentions the 90s, it seems like it is 10+ years not 20+ years ago.

Totally amazing again tonight. I waited two hours for the clouds to clear, but it was worth it! And as quick as it cleared, it clouded over again.

Nice photo 👍🏼 What ISO?

Thanks Mark. Sorry I thought had sent you a message about receiving it! All perfect as expected 👍🏻👍🏻

I have seen a few images of 1 second duration, that capture core and tail. I couldnt believe it when I lookd at it this morning for the first time. As clear as day with the naked eye.

The only time I got figures like with my Mesu e200 was a fortnight ago when I changed from OAG to finderscope guider, and when setting up a new profile in PHD2 I incorrectly entered the FL of the guidescope as 500mm (that is the focal of my imaging scope) as opposed to 185mm. That is very impressive - have you definitely entered the right focal length in PHD2 so that it is reporting the right figures?! What do you think would be gained from guiding at a longer FL? If you can achieve an RMS of 0.21", then you can image at a resolution of 0.420"/px. With your 1600MM you could image at a focal length of 1850mm and still achieve 0.42"/px just by using the finderscope. Good to see such excellent results early on though 👍

Me too, I've been trying to share this info with as many people as possible to get out tonight as the forecast looks good. This will be night 3, where night 1 was a failure. Last night I saw it and captured it so I'm happy. Tonight is a bonus, so plan to head to a local beauty spot and image it over that.

I think I would be a bit miffed to pay full price for one. Have you a link to that one? I tried to search for it on google but couldnt find it.

Yes indeed, handy having it close by but easier remotely operated via PC! I read about the internals of the item, I guess its a case of being greater than the sum of its parts! I havent had much time to test time, this was just a few minutes, but I had it at 12.5psi. I read people using it around 17psi. This was my first day so I havent any other days to compare it to. I will post updates though. I expect it to be the same pressure each day according to Lunt and the product spec. I would be disappointed if it wasnt TBH. Please post a photo or PM me, I would love to see inside it.

Thanks 😎 Nikon D800E with Nikon 180mm F2.8 lens. ISO200, 13s exposure, F5.6. On Star Adventurer mount roughly placed north.

I’m actually using a T2 tilter, the Newtons rings were bad without it. Maybe it’s a processing artefact from AS!2. I tried both, as it wouldnt stack properly with 3. Is there any way to test if NRs are the cause?

That’ll be the join! Sorry best I could do, it’s a 2 panel mosaic.

I don’t think it’s your screen. There’s a vertical banding for sure. Processing/stacking artefact? NRs?

At last! Spent a good 20 minutes just looking at it through binos. Visual astronomy is very relaxing, just the birds singing and nothing else. This comet requires literally no observing skills to see, it just jumps out at you. Looks to have a fairly long tail from the photo I took at the time