How to image a comet by mistake !!

[carastro]

Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak

Was trying to find a galaxy in Ursa Major I fancied doing on Friday at astro camp, and the GOTO did not find it, so I slewed around a bit and found a fuzzy, which was smaller than I expected but thought "that must be it".

The following day I examined my subs and I was surprised to find the "galaxy" had moved and was elongated in the the 600secs subs. Duh, it was actually a comet. 

So decided to turn it into an animation, though having imaged it with a mono camera in LRGB it is only in B&W.
600sec luminance subs and 300sec binned RGB subs so image quality and shape of comet is variable. 

Apparently it has no tail. 

Carole 

 

[triton1]

Wow very cool especially when it's by mistake love the animation.

[Paul M]

That's a really nice animation. The coma looks huge! 

[SilverAstro]

Brill, nice one !! "  They can run but they can't hide"

and an animation as well, a treat indeed

 

[johnfosteruk]

Excellent.

[Mr Spock]

Nice catch. I like the animation.

[SilverAstro]

In a way a new discovery, so I propose we now call it Comet Carole

Or, at very least, Comet 41P/Carole-Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak

[laudropb]

Very nice capture Carol .

[bob-c]

well done carol a great capture

                                           bob.

[carastro]

Thanks every-one.  No idea what happened to the planned galaxy and why i missed it.  Lol.

Carole 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Nice catch, which galaxy were you aiming for Carole?

I also caught a comet by accident once, Lovejoy passing the Garnet Star - but my field of view was considerably larger with a 135mm lens. The animation below is a crop.

I also have a 135mm animation of 41P to process but I believe it's quite a slow mover?

[carastro]

Quote

which galaxy were you aiming for Carole?

Bit embarrassed to say as my GOTO seems to have been miles out, unless my slewing around took me miles out.

I wanted to capture NGC3718

I did think the fuzzy was a bit small, but then thought I was just looking at the centre of the galaxy and that there was more around it which would show up in longer exposure. 

Carole 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

18 hours ago, carastro said:

I did think the fuzzy was a bit small, but then thought I was just looking at the centre of the galaxy and that there was more around it which would show up in longer exposure. 

Yes, that can easily happen with a galaxy, when just the core shows up in the sub.

Nice choice of target by the way, hope you get another chance on it sometime.

[wimvb]

On ‎2017‎-‎03‎-‎28 at 12:40, carastro said:

Thanks every-one.  No idea what happened to the planned galaxy and why i missed it.  Lol.

Carole 

Nice animation of that comet. There is a faint galaxy to the upper left of the comet, so even if it wasn't the one you aimed for, you still managed to get a comet an galaxy (-ies) in the frames.

Thanks for sharing

[carastro]

Thanks Wim,

I have since done some plate solving and found where I was in the sky and where my chosen Galaxy was, and by the time I had slewed around a bit looking for it, I was miles out, or should I say light years out!!!

Oh well, maybe next time.

Carole