how to image a comet

[iwols]

hi all seen some great images of comets lately,and just wondered if it is possible with my ed80 heq5 and 414ex ccd,but wouldnt know where to start ie when is one due ,how fast do they travel and do i need to track them same as with a dso object,are they long exposures,like i say dont know where to start any advice cheers

[Davey-T]

Having failed miserably to image 21P/GZ last night I may not be the best person to offer advice 

Your setup should be fine, presumably you can enter co ordinates manually into the handset, you can get these from Stellarium.

Generally comets aren't travelling very fast across the FOV so once you centre it it will stay.

I use a DSLR or OSC as it saves a lot of faffing about in post processing but if you like that sort of thing there's no reason not to do RGB.

Exposure maybe 30secs / 90 secs bit of trial and error.

If you figure out which way it's going you can move the comet to one side of the frame and do a time lapse across the FOV, just needs a bit of experimenting to gauge the movement.

DSS has a comet stacking feature to keep the comet sharp and blur the stars you can again mess around in P'Shop or suchlike to process it.

[iwols]

??thanks davey,dont use the handset,can i put it into eqmod,and how do i find the coming of a comet

[Davey-T]

14 minutes ago, iwols said:

how do i find the coming of a comet

There are always a few comets flying around but many are very dim, mag 18 / 20, you can download a list of observable comets into Stellarium, there are also dedicated comet sites like this one.

http://www.cometchasing.skyhound.com/

Dave

[Craney]

where to find them......

https://in-the-sky.org/data/comets.php

Good luck.

 

[iwols]

5 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Having failed miserably to image 21P/GZ last night I may not be the best person to offer advice 

Your setup should be fine, presumably you can enter co ordinates manually into the handset, you can get these from Stellarium.

Generally comets aren't travelling very fast across the FOV so once you centre it it will stay.

I use a DSLR or OSC as it saves a lot of faffing about in post processing but if you like that sort of thing there's no reason not to do RGB.

Exposure maybe 30secs / 90 secs bit of trial and error.

If you figure out which way it's going you can move the comet to one side of the frame and do a time lapse across the FOV, just needs a bit of experimenting to gauge the movement.

DSS has a comet stacking feature to keep the comet sharp and blur the stars you can again mess around in P'Shop or suchlike to process it.

does cartes  du ciel do it like stellarium?

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, iwols said:

does cartes  du ciel do it like stellarium?

Probably, I've got CDC on my laptop but only use it occasionally so never got to grips with downloading data to it.

Dave

[Helen]

Yes, CDC, does comets too ?  

Setup>Solar system>comet>loadmpcfile>download>apply>ok

Then just make sure you have the show comet box just above chart highlighted.

Helen

[iwols]

is there an easy comet to image at the minute please

[Davey-T]

21P/ Giacobini Zinner is the easiest one but you need to stay up late or get up early 

Dave

[iwols]

thanks davey how do you work the time the comet can be imaged?

[Davey-T]

I put in Stellarium though it didn't seem to have it right last night.

Put it in the search then run the time back and forth to see when it's at it's highest, Moon is interfering ATM.

It's just rising now.

Dave

[iwols]

Do they travel quick enough in a 30 sec image to see movement? Or see that its a comet and not a star

 

[Davey-T]

3 hours ago, iwols said:

Do they travel quick enough in a 30 sec image to see movement? Or see that its a comet and not a star

 

Their apparent speed across the sky depends on their distance from Earth, anything from 30 sec's to 5minutes will show movement, you can generally see it's a comet in a 30 sec's exposure as it looks like a fuzzy star and hopefully shows a bit of a tail.

Dave