Catalina, First Proper Attempt At A Comet, Very Quick And Dirty.

[cathalferris]

Catalina, passing Alioth.

AVX mount, Celestron Onyx 80ED scope, Canon 600D camera, CLS filter. Guided externally on Alioth with SW Synguider, and a Rube Goldberg dual mounting system using a Skywatcher L-bracket and a spare Manfrotto tripod head.

35x120 sec subs.

16 bias frames

14 flat frames

9 dark frames. (Ran out of battery taking these)

Raws processed and stacked in DSS, once tracking stars, again tracking the comet. Combined in PS CS2, with layers to remove the comet from the star-tracked. I had a devil of a time trying to remove the trail of Alioth from the comet-stacked, so I ended up not trying to clean that up too much,as the results were looking quite poor.

I'm definitely doing something wrong as the stacked images are definitely very noisy and without good SNR, possibly the use of the CLS clip-in filter. Next time there's a clear night I'll remember not to use that filter for comet chasing as it's likely that the exposures are short enough not to worry too much about LP. Still, other exposures with just a lens on the camera gave good enough results. I know my colour balance is not right.

Still, I can just about see the ion tail, and I can see the dust tail easily enough.

[MilwaukeeLion]

Nice first comet image & pin point stars.

[speckles]

I think that's Alkaid near the comet, not Alioth? Well done capturing the ion tail!

[cathalferris]

Yes, it's Alkaid of course, not Alioth.   I'm unsure how I managed to get that one wrong.

Hoping for a clear night, and I'll travel a little away from the lights of the town and I'll get another hour or two of frames, and I'll not use a CLS clip in filter. Should give a better comet.

[buikimaging]

But januari the 24th?

Does it still has to be taken.

But well done nice picture of cat.

[JohnSadlerAstro]

But januari the 24th?

Does it still has to be taken.

But well done nice picture of cat.

Hi,

Perhaps the OP has labelled the image with SpaceTime, not EarthTime?   :grin:    

Really great image, I'm wanting to try Catalina soon. Thanks for posting!

John