21P/Giacobini-Zinner - by accident

[Mognet]

Seeing the latest challenge for imaging constellations reminded me that I hadn't got round to posting this. It's an image of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner taken in the early hours of 16th August when it was near the heart and soul nebulae. When I first saw it in the image I thought it was maybe a galaxy or nebula as it's a little fuzzy blob among reasonably sharp stars. It wasn't until a couple of months later when curiousity got the better of me that I looked on Stellarium and found nothing there. Until I put the image date in that is. (curiously only on the tablet version as the desktop version doesn't show comets for me)

It's pretty hard to spot in the first image. It was taken as a wide field view of Cassiopeia, with the double cluster and Caroline's Rose Cluster. To find the comet, go straight up from the left side of the double cluster by about a third of the height of the image and you should see a tiny fuzzy blob with a bit of a tail. It may not be immediately obvious

I'd taken another set of subs that night that centred on the double cluster. The image wasn't as good overall, so I've cropped it down to just the double cluster and comet. It's a bit more obvious in this one, and is sitting on the extreme left about a third of the way down

The next night I was out again taking more images, but pointing at Mirfak and I just caught one half of the double cluster at the top of the image. It may be a bit out of focus, but the image corresponds roughly to the bottom half of the above photo, and it can definitely be seen where there wasn't anything the previous night

Had I have known it was this visible I would have looked for it with the scope too!

 

Image 1: Nikon D3100, Nikkor 1.8G 35mm prime, 60 subs at ISO 1600, f2.2

Image 2: As image 1, but 42 subs

Image 3: As image 1, but f2.5

Processing in Sequator and GIMP

[des anderson]

That`s a lovely set of images and a bonus in the shape of a comet. Des