Comet 46P - Wirtanen - it is harder than it looks

[tooth_dr]

Getting an image is proving much harder than I anticipated.

I've spent two nights working on the subs.  Although I'm not at all happy with these, rather than write off the time I've spent, I thought I would share it anyway.

I only had four subs with my mono CCD, 4 x 300s, guided on the comet nucleus, so I had to use the ones with satellite trails.  I had the idea to take RGB binned 2x2, but this made aligning the lum and RGB just impossible with the software and skills I had available.  I also took some DSLR subs with M45 too, one hour of 60s subs, but DSS is not working with me.  If I try to stack the comet and stars it comes out colourless, so I've just stacked on the stars and the comet is blurred.

They cant all be good lol

 

[tooth_dr]

I am disappointed not to have a better image with the DSLR.  I was using a decent lens (my sigma 105mm F2.8) on a 40d.  I think I set my benchmark too high when I see other peoples images.

[Sunshine]

You're hard on yourself, looks great to me.

[orion25]

Looks fine, tooth_dr. Hey, you captured a comet after all! 

[Size9Hex]

I really like it. Balances and compares the comet with the Pleiades very nicely. The Pleiades look very close to the view in the eyepiece from a dark site too. It’s great to see just how faint the nebulosity really is compared to the comet which I suppose is fairly bright compared to most faint fuzzies.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice capture.

[ollypenrice]

I really like the one with M45 in for scale.

Olly

[Mark at Beaufort]

I think you have produced a nice image of the Comet set against the Pleiades. You have also captured the Merope Nebula plus some aspects of the Maia Nebula. I think you should be pleased with this effort -  why not enter the image in the 46P competition.

[happy-kat]

I'm also finding processing quite challenging but am now taking two images one stacked on the comet and the other on the stars and combining rather than using the one file stacked on both from DSS. There's a thread running with some ideas on it following the original observation of the combined limitations.

[tooth_dr]

Thanks guys.  I'll try the DSS settings and adjust them.  I'm getting no colour when I process it on my laptop.  But the image above was stacked on my obsy PC, so the settings must be affecting it!