Is everybody bored with the comet yet?

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Last night, while the DSLR was being recharged, I stuck the 16HR on the ED80 complete with a focal reducer. The stuff that came out has fascinated me, so I've been playing with the data.

First off I did a stack of 40 two minute exposures in Maxim choosing the comet head to align on.

(click to enlarge)

At this point I noticed what could be described as a shockwave, or bowwave to the right of the comet, so I used some curves to attempt to bring this out.

(click to enlarge)

Next up was an attempt to bring out some core details, so off back to Maxim to Larson-Sekanina process. This is intended to enhance any rotational gradients within the image. This appeared to show two tails to the comet, but the spacing might have been due to the rotation inherent in that processing technique so the result is inconclusive.

(click to enlarge)

I couldn't get that to play ball, so I tried a different technique. This next one shows the use of smart sharpen in Photoshop.

(click to enlarge)

And finally, a bit of homemade unsharp masking which I think has brought the core detail out best of all. This was done by making a duplicate layer. This was then blurred using a Gaussian blur, inverted and set to 50% opacity. After flattening the image I reset the black point to give the following image.

(click to enlarge)

Well I hope somebody finds this interesting, I know I did.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[Helen]

Fascinating stuff KK 8)

Helen

[Ant]

Nice one KK, they are all great images.

But I think tha the last one bring more to the party than the others... I can't really explain why - been sitting here trying to think of what I want to say and I've given up.

Good work mate!

Ant

[barkis]

You are enjoying playing with this comet KK. What you're doing is both interesting, and quite clever. I am sure there are some answers to questions in what you have produced, but I am at a loss as to what they are. The only thing I can say, is the last image appears to have a bow shock. But whether real or fashioned is hard to tell. Still, you are adding greatly to the mystery surrounding this body.

Ron.