First Attempt at Comet Imaging

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Never again!!! (until the next one 😀 - not ashamed to admit that I was as giddy as a child at Christmas when the first sub came though!) 

I did a bit of read up beforehand, which made capture surprisingly straightforward, but it was sooo difficult to process - this sums up my experience quite well:

I still have some artifacts from the star clean up process of the comet aligned image, but this is about as good as I can do right now.

Captured on 31/01/2023, 19:53 - 22:33, under an 80% moon. 70 x 30s subs (each) in LRGB. This is an LRGB comet, with RGB stars. Processed in PI.

C&C welcome!

Edited February 17, 2023 by The Lazy Astronomer

[happy-kat]

There's a great flare in the comet tail captured. 

[ShinyTwelve]

😵 Wow!

[fwm891]

Nowt wrong with that Sir/Madam

[carastro]

Super, well worth the processing pain. 
 

Carole

[Sunshine]

It seems that as good as you can do is about as good as I've seen! (and I've seen many) amazing work, It is wonderful, and worth all the tears.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Sunshine

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Thanks very much everyone! I really didn't think this was all that good, mainly because I was slightly disappointed with the ion tail based on other excellent images I've seen, but maybe I'm being too harsh on myself! Glad you like it!

[Enceladus Dan]

Hiya, 

Your image and summary of how processing this comet made you feel, perfectly matches how I felt. Being my first also, I was full of joy watching the subs APT was bringing in. In my head I could see the image I was expecting,  Then came the processing and a whole new world of tools and techniques. 

Like you, i found my way in the end. I had produced an image which I originally thought wasn't good enough, but have now realised I did a pretty good job, by comparison yours is far better. Its well framed, nice coma colour, sharp stars with no trails and a nice long ion tail. A superb job I would say, well done. 

As frustrating as processing this comet was, im eagerly awaiting the next. 

Clear skies

Danny

[Captain Scarlet]

Lovely image but I actually laughed out loud when I saw the captioned images well before I scrolled down to the comet image, which I thought was therefore going to be a horror show. But quite the opposite … very nice.

Magnus

Edited February 19, 2023 by Captain Scarlet

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

That's brilliant and deserves another meme...

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[The Lazy Astronomer]

On 19/02/2023 at 18:23, Enceladus Dan said:

Your image and summary of how processing this comet made you feel, perfectly matches how I felt. Being my first also, I was full of joy watching the subs APT was bringing in. In my head I could see the image I was expecting,  Then came the processing and a whole new world of tools and techniques.

I think there's probably a lot of people who have shared the same comet experience, they ain't easy things to deal with, that's for sure!

On 19/02/2023 at 18:23, Enceladus Dan said:

Like you, i found my way in the end. I had produced an image which I originally thought wasn't good enough, but have now realised I did a pretty good job, by comparison yours is far better. Its well framed, nice coma colour, sharp stars with no trails and a nice long ion tail. A superb job I would say, well done. 

Thanks for your comments, really appreciated - that ion tail still had something to give I feel, but my exposure just wasn't deep enough to really do it justice. Never fully happy 😆