Comet 46P/Wirtanen

[Randalloverby]

I have never before attempted to image a comet so I'm looking for any tips and advice. I will be using the Star Adventurer and Canon 5D Mark lll along with the Canon 70-200 2.8 lens. Thanks for any info.

[Davey-T]

Imaged a couple of comets recently using the Star Adventurer and DSLR, a few in this section if you browse around it,  I've used 300mm lens but 70/200 will be fine, actually got it set up in the bedroom window ATM hoping for a shot at Comet Machholz which may be visible low in the pre dawn sky.

The trickiest bit is actually finding the damn things and none of the recent ones have been very bright, 46P is forecast to brighten hopefully.

An RDF in the hotshoe is useful and Sky Safari or Stellarium to locate them although the positions shown don't always tally up for some reason, guess it depends when they're updated.

As usual a bit of experimenting with settings is needed depending on your sky conditions, I generally use ISO1600 and 30secs exposures using an intervalometer with spacing between exposures of 10/20 minutes to catch a time lapse.

Dave

[Randalloverby]

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Imaged a couple of comets recently using the Star Adventurer and DSLR, a few in this section if you browse around it,  I've used 300mm lens but 70/200 will be fine, actually got it set up in the bedroom window ATM hoping for a shot at Comet Machholz which may be visible low in the pre dawn sky.

The trickiest bit is actually finding the damn things and none of the recent ones have been very bright, 46P is forecast to brighten hopefully.

An RDF in the hotshoe is useful and Sky Safari or Stellarium to locate them although the positions shown don't always tally up for some reason, guess it depends when they're updated.

As usual a bit of experimenting with settings is needed depending on your sky conditions, I generally use ISO1600 and 30secs exposures using an intervalometer with spacing between exposures of 10/20 minutes to catch a time lapse.

Dave

Thank you Dave and good luck capturing Machholz. If 46P brightens up enough then it might reach naked eye visibility, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed.