Comet 46P through the colour factory

[happy-kat]

First night was Wednesday the 12th but there was more cloud then sky but it was great to get outside and see what was possible, or not possible with the clouds. Caught in one fr0om the comet and what looked like a Geminid but on reflection the angle was wrong so it was something and not a plane or even not perhaps a satellite. Apart from the clouds the sky was very murky even if clear in patches.

Thursday the 13th was a a bonus as it proved to be clear for longer then originally forecast so dived outside and setup. Sky was clear but extremely murky the air felt quite wet like an Autumn night with dew yet nothing dewed though the lawn did frost over. Very difficult to focus as the sky wasn't clear enough to let as star show on the camera so it was take one check fiddle try again repeat. Once happy enough with focus set the timelapse up to take batches of 20 images so I could check focus hadn't drifted (though back button focus does a good job of stopping this on this electronic lens). Virtuoso mount Canon 1100d 40mm pancake on f4 ISO 800 30 second exposure, took 64 like this.

The comet was quite low in the sky, I don't do late nights and as was outside the front couldn't really just leave it running unattended. The street light (over my head) was lighting up the roofs I was shooting over coupled with the sky glow dome I have done a heavy crop on the final image. Flats and dark flats I took next morning. I have tried a variety of DSS stacks and they are all very noisy so had a bit of fun. Using fitliberator opened the fits file autosaved from DSS and saved pane 1 as red, pane 2 and green and pane 3 as blue. Using startools I then used the LGB model to load the separate files into their corresponding colours this then after a heavy crop has produced the best of the bunch. I did a mask on the comet so could boost the colour and give it the noticeable green tinge. Looking forward to trying again though I plan to swap to the 85mm lens and hopefully the comet will be higher and out of the sky glow dome as I would love to have enough clear frame to do a timelapse.

 

 

[Hallingskies]

Love the write-up.  I understand your struggles...