Comet Heinze (C/2017 T1)

[lukebl]

On 6th Jan, I captured some images of Comet Heinze (C/2017 T1), which is currently moving very fast in Casiopaeia. It's a near parabolic comet that passed closest to Earth on January 4, 2018, at a distance of 0.22 AU. It was discovered on 2d October 2017 by Ari Heinze of the University of Hawaiʻi. Perihelion is on February 21, 2018, and it is expected peak magnitude about 8.8.

It is currently moving so fast that even 30 second exposures showed considerable movement. This is the result of 30 x 30 second exposures, Atik 428ex, 200mm f/5 Newtonian. Stacked in DSS, aligned on the comet.

This is an animation produced by stacking 5 x 30 second exposures, resulting in 6 x 2.5 minute frames over the period of 15 minutes.

[Jannis]

That's really quick it seems! How do you track it? Do you guide on the comet?

[lukebl]

On 08/01/2018 at 01:55, Jannis said:

.... Do you guide on the comet?

No, guided on a star, but stacked on the comet in DSS.

I must work out how to guide on the comet so that I can get exposures of more than 30 seconds.

[Robd]

Lukebl, in DSS have you tried stacking on comet and stars? In simple terms it stacks the comet throwing away the stars, then stacks stars throwing away comet, then puts results together giving comet on static star fields. Doubles stacking time but does give a nice result. Having said that I've never stacked a comet moving this fast. 

 

[lukebl]

1 hour ago, Robd said:

Lukebl, in DSS have you tried stacking on comet and stars? In simple terms it stacks the comet throwing away the stars, then stacks stars throwing away comet, then puts results together giving comet on static star fields. Doubles stacking time but does give a nice result. Having said that I've never stacked a comet moving this fast. 

 

Hi Rob. Yes, I've tried stacking on comet and stars in DSS, but I've never been very satisfied with the result.

Anyway, the main issue is getting a sufficiently long exposure in the first place. Heinze is moving so fast that even 30 sec exposures show movement, and I'd like to try and get a few minutes to get some detail in the tail. I've been reading up on comet guiding with PHD Guiding, and will try that when we next get a clear night.

[PepeChambo]

Good catch lukebl, my version from volcano

Comet C/2017 T1 (Heinze) photographed on December 15th 2017 through the telescope IAC-80 from Teide Observatory. In this image taken two months a half after be discovered and still with magnitude 13, already shows a curved dust tail. This small comet is fairly possible that disintegrate during its approaching to Sun on next February.

The high resolution of this image, stacked on comet to compensate its high speed, allows observing in detail inside of small coma, which has a diameter only 15 arcseconds.

Data and direct link: http://cometografia.es/2017t1-heinze-20171215/

[PepeChambo]

Comet C/2017 T1 (Heinze) passed its perihelion on February 21th 2018 approaching at only 0,6 A.U. from the Sun. In spite of disintegration risk because its small size, in this image taken on March 28th seems that still existing, althoug is not known if contains any nucleus or simply is about a greenish slush of dust and carbonic ice which will ends breaking up in next days.

The brightest star in this one square degree field, with 6.5 visual magnitude, is the giant orange HD 207627 just 400 light-years away in Capricornus constellation.

 

 

Data: http://cometografia.es/2017t1-heninze-20180328/