Comet Lovejoy rises again

[happy-kat]

I know this is a been and gone comet January 2015 but I have been learning new processing skills by the challenge of comet 46P Wirtanen.

Following on from this thread link here on what DSS was doing and leaving untidy star stutters I went back and revisited Lovejoy data to see if I could improve my previous processing. Never throw old data away!! Following the new process workflow using a separate star file and comet file, layers and masks in StarTools I created a new image from the two stacks produced by DSS (one on stars the other on the comet) I also managed to not clip the background sky it is a reasonable 8 - 9 range. Saved as jpeg for upload.

This was taken using Canon 1100d with Takumar vintage 50mm lens 30 seconds long 23 x lights and 5 x darks and I think this was on the manual barndoor mount. 

Before

After

[happy-kat]

I am tempted to reprocess again and extend the comet mask to reveal the full tail extension I had captured but that is for another day.

[tooth_dr]

That’s a great job. I have a nice one of Comet LJ with a good tail, I could probably redo. 

[happy-kat]

Thanks. It's all practice as it is not like they happen very often.

[Davey-T]

Good job HK, a comet with a tail, they're getting to be a bit of a rarity we must be due a good one.

Dave

[Pete Presland]

Superb, always good to revisit data.