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Comet ISON

Leveye

By Leveye
in Getting Started With Imaging

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Leveye

Leveye

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Finally caught comet ISON as it aligned with Mars and Regulus.

The comet is at last starting to turn an awesome green. Hopefully it will survive it's run around the sun and emerge in December with a giant tail. 

Wanted much longer exposures but had to do it old school unguided here. Not to bad can even see the Leo I dwarf galaxy by Regulus. Gonna take another crack at it in the morning with hopefully a working laptop.

20 1 minute lights, 15 Darks, 40 bias staked in DSS and tweeked in PS.

post-28595-0-62992800-1381772394_thumb.j

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nmoushon

nmoushon

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Nicely done! I'm planning on trying to capture this comet once the week long rain spell goes away. You said you are wanting to get longer shots of this. What would you guide on? I would assume a star but wouldn't the comet become elongated then?

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Leveye

Leveye

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Nicely done! I'm planning on trying to capture this comet once the week long rain spell goes away. You said you are wanting to get longer shots of this. What would you guide on? I would assume a star but wouldn't the comet become elongated then?

Well at this focal length (460mm) i'm pretty sure a 2-3 minute guided exposure would not show trailing of the comet. There are quite a few guide star candidates in there.

I can say It made a huge difference using ISO 800 for 2 minutes than ISO 1600 for a minute.The comet at ISO 800 looked amazing with an even longer tail but alas without guiding my mount won't do much longer than a minute at this FL without showing trails.

Back at it tonight. Hope you all have your turn soon. Thanks!

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nmoushon

nmoushon

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Well at this focal length (460mm) i'm pretty sure a 2-3 minute guided exposure would not show trailing of the comet. There are quite a few guide star candidates in there.

I can say It made a huge difference using ISO 800 for 2 minutes than ISO 1600 for a minute.The comet at ISO 800 looked amazing with an even longer tail but alas without guiding my mount won't do much longer than a minute at this FL without showing trails.

Back at it tonight. Hope you all have your turn soon. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice. Hopefully I can get at this soon while its still near Mars. It makes a great composition. Need to double check when it visible from my back yard or maybe have to go up in the mountains. Hopefully your laptop works soon. Make sure to post your new when when you can. Good luck.

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Leveye

Leveye

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Leveye, am I right in thinking you took this pic WITHOUT a tracking mount??? I've just bought a canon 700d and looking to get a few shots but I'm worried I'll need a tracking mount if you have to use long exposures?????

No I was tracking on my iOptron Zmount unguided with a basic polar alignment. No guide scope and no laptop running PHD. I LOVE this mount highly recommended.

At this focal length (460mm) I was able to get just under 2 minutes but wanted to play it safe so went with 1 minute exposures. When I guide with this mount I get 5-10 minute exposures easy. Don't expect this if your just using a tripod you'll only get a few seconds. 

At wider lengths say 16mm or so wide open aperture you can pull off about 25 seconds on just a tripod. Sooner or later you have to get a mount.

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Leveye

Leveye

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Thanks for the advice. Hopefully I can get at this soon while its still near Mars. It makes a great composition. Need to double check when it visible from my back yard or maybe have to go up in the mountains. Hopefully your laptop works soon. Make sure to post your new when when you can. Good luck.

Do it soon as you can if you get a clear night it's only lined up like this for a few days and gets harder to shoot. It's rising with the sun more and more till December when it comes round again in the darker hours but hopefully with a huge tail.

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Pete Presland

Pete Presland

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Well at this focal length (460mm) i'm pretty sure a 2-3 minute guided exposure would not show trailing of the comet. There are quite a few guide star candidates in there.

I can say It made a huge difference using ISO 800 for 2 minutes than ISO 1600 for a minute.The comet at ISO 800 looked amazing with an even longer tail but alas without guiding my mount won't do much longer than a minute at this FL without showing trails.

Back at it tonight. Hope you all have your turn soon. Thanks!

great image excellent colours! i managed a 180 sec exposure with my ED80 this morning with no evidence of trailing, mind it was the only sub i got before it clouded over!

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Leveye

Leveye

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You should have sent it to APOD.  I prefer your version ot the one that appeared there this morning:

http://asterisk.apod.com/library/APOD/APOD%20mirror/ap131017.html

(This is from the mirror site since the NASA server is still affected by US Gov shutdown)

Mark

I really should have i wasn't fast enough but thanks for the compliment!

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Leveye

Leveye

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Is ISON avaiable as go-to in Stellarium, or does one need to know where to look?

I'd love to give it a shot with my 600mm, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to these things...

Right now it's pretty easy to find. In the US it's to the east and up at around  25-30 degrees at 3 a.m. to almost 6 a.m. Look for Mars and Regulus together can't miss them. ISON will be to the left of Mars. The moon might be an issue now for a few weeks. Best of luck!

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Leveye

Leveye

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You should have sent it to APOD.  I prefer your version ot the one that appeared there this morning:

http://asterisk.apod.com/library/APOD/APOD%20mirror/ap131017.html

(This is from the mirror site since the NASA server is still affected by US Gov shutdown)

Mark

It did make this site which is pretty cool.

http://www.cometisonnews.com/

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