C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - visual and images

[geeklee]

This started to get into a favourable position earlier in the evening recently and I've had the chance to observe it on Thu 26th and Sat 28th Jan in my 8x40 bins.  Both occasions were straight forward to locate and I could make out the nucleus and a little of the faint coma.  It was very dim and conditions weren't too favourable.

The 26th was around 23:30:

The 28th was around 20:00.  An easy star hop up from Kochab 👍

On Sunday 29th, it was clear long enough to grab some images! It was good fun capturing and processing a comet.  Hopefully I'll get another go without the moon.

They comprise 45 x 60s at ~430mm focal length.  The first image is using the Comet registration option in AstroPixelProcessor - it gives a nice sense of movement to the image and is easy to use:

It was a lot trickier to create this composite image of a starfield and the comet!

And a short video to show the movement through those 45 minutes.  It's been a spoiled a bit on conversion to GIF.

Thanks for looking.

[glafnazur]

Nice Lee, I particularly like the second image 👍

[tomato]

Great work!

[geeklee]

Thanks @glafnazur @tomato

If you squint in a darkened room, the faint ion tail is just visible!😅 

Edited February 1, 2023 by geeklee