Comet 17P Holmes - Colour, enhanced, overlayed

[SteveL]

Got home early last night and had my kit set up and cooled by 6pm

Right, time to get to work on "My First Comet"

Comet 17P Holmes

OTA: NS8GPS @ f/10

Guiding: WO ZS 66 SD + DSI-C + PHD

Imaging: QHY8 + MaximDL, 26 x 60s (damn the clouds!)

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker (comet mode)

Post Process: MaximDL + PSCS2

Colur Version

Then a Mono Larson-Sekanina filtered version (do NOT do this on a colour image, your eyes will appreciate you for it )

And now using the mono version as a luminosity layer on the colour version

[Roy Batty]

Great images Steve

Is it just me or do peeps think it looks a bit like a mint humbug with the banding coming out from the core - weird.

RB

[Vega]

Great images Steve, do you think there is a tail and we are seeing the back of it through to the nucleus ? Maybe over time as the comet's orbit progresses and likewise, Earth viewing angle changes, a tail will start to stretch out. I just cannot believe this monster is further out than Mars (considering the size of Mars in the eyepeice at the moment :shock:)

Vega

[Ant]

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker (comet mode)

There is a comet mode? [removed word] need to find that...

Thats a lovely images mate - really smooth.

Like the humbug version as well.

I read somewhere that this comet is now over 100,000 miles across.

Ant

[SteveL]

Its my first comet, so I have no idea

Actually, I believe the comet is heading out of the solar system right now, but the tail always points away from the sun. As such, I am guessing that the bright point is the actual comet itself, and the outer coma is the streaming debris field being blown off the comet and heading outwards past the comet core. We are viewing it "head on" even though its retreating from us.

Someone please correct me if I am talking carp...

Ant - New version of DSS (v3.01+) has a little side bar on it that allows you to centre a comet.

[lunator]

Steve

Very interesting pics.

I wonder if the bright bit is where the out-gassing is happening.

I think you are close with your desceription of our view. We are looking at the coment end-on and looking 'down' the tail

Cheers

Ian

[Vega]

Can a 2nd tails form (ion tail ?) this far out from the sun ?

Vega

[markcol]

Great shots Steve, as good as any I'd say.

If that's a comet head-on I'm glad it's not coming our way!- If that is the case, have we actually got the most undramatic view possible from our perspective of it?

Cheers

Mark