Comet Catalina and M101

[michaelmorris]

Unfortunately the weather gods didn't play ball on Saturday night and the conjunction of Comet Catalina with M101 took place behind an impenetrable veil of altostratus cloud.

Clear Outside had predicted this, so I when the clouds parted on Friday night just before midnight I took the opportunity to try to snap the two objects close to each other.  In the end I got nearly 3 hours of data (59 x 180 secs.).

Whilst using my 66 mm Apo with 0.8 focal reducer did just get both targets in the same field of view, I think I would have been better off using my 200 mm camera lens, as the framing is really much too tight.

Processing was quite difficult with DSS's 'combined Comet stacking' mode producing background star trails when I pushed the processing. In the end I had to combine two separately process images to get the control over the image I wanted.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Very nice, I was hoping someone would image the conjunction at a longer focal length. The framing works for me. I see you've got NGC5475, and there is another galaxy to the right of M101. The ion tail is there but it's very faint, I wonder if it could be brought out a bit more?

I've never got the stars+comet mode in DSS to work either but some people have, it seems to work with some data sets but not others.

[laudropb]

Great capture.nice detail in both objects.

[Peje]

Was planning on having a crack at this tonight, currently trying to work out if it's possible to get PHD2 to guide for it. From the tutorials I need its RA & Dec rates, did you use guiding for your shots?

[Peje]

EDIT: Did some Googling and was able to pull the appropriate figures from CDC for the rates to input into PHD2. Also discovered I was using PHD1 so upgraded that to get the comet tracking option.

Hopefully Clear Outside is right and I'll get some time on it at 3am

[Davey-T]

Very nice, took some shots through a hazy sky last night, not looked at them yet.

Dave

[JeremyS]

This is an amazing image, Michael - well done!

Go well!

Jeremy

[Ouroboros]

I think that's a great photo, Michael. The thing about a picture like this is that it's likely to be pretty much unique. Yes, it could be better framed with a longer focal length. But it isn't, and you worked with what you had. There are umpteen photographs of M31, but only one photo like yours. No one will ever take that picture again. It's special. One for the album.

[Peje]

I think that's a great photo, Michael. The thing about a picture like this is that it's likely to be pretty much unique. Yes, it could be better framed with a longer focal length. But it isn't, and you worked with what you had. There are umpteen photographs of M31, but only one photo like yours. No one will ever take that picture again. It's special. One for the album.

Very well put!

[Stu1976j]

wonderful image you have there 

[Pete Presland]

A tight fit, but you did it! Very nice end result.