Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan and the Loony Galaxy

[GalaxyGael]

Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan captured on Dec 11 while it was wandering through Leo. There are a plethora of distant galaxies and galaxy groups here, with some nice dispersion of larger foreground stars of various color temperatures. We also see NGC 3239, an irregular galaxy called the Loony Galaxy (Arp 263).
 

With hazy high cloud and gradients, some work was needed to sort out the background and deal with compositing a stack on stars with a stack on the comet nucleus, worked out ok.

It's going to get brighter into January, seemed to have caught a little of a tail but it's short, maybe it's direction at the moment.

Captured Dec 11 with TS Hypergraph 6, 420mm @ f/2.8 with asi2600mc pro at gain 0, -10C.

145 x 60s exposures, B7 skies

[Paul M]

Small but perfectly formed, I say. Very nice capture.

[MalcolmP]

 

Very nice

With a guest appearance by asteroid (101)Helena !

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by MalcolmP

[GalaxyGael]

18 hours ago, MalcolmP said:

 

Very nice

With a guest appearance by asteroid (101)Helena !

 

 

Thank you. I saw that in the stack and could just about make it out between first and last sub when blinking. 

Glad I found an asteroid too, thanks for identifying it. It did not show in my astap analysis, what did you use out of curiosity?

[MalcolmP]

4 hours ago, GalaxyGael said:

It did not show in my astap analysis, what did you use out of curiosity?

I used Stellarium, just done a double-check in CduC and it shows it ok,
 and for good measure this is an extract from JPL Horizons (for tonight)
101 Helena (A868 PA)  RA10:25:2 Dec+16 35'20" V.mag13.4

No more photo-ops for it and 62p they are parting company, you caught Helana at the right time just as it is beginning a retrograde loop from now until March next year.
For followers of little rocks I have made this plot in Stellarium (5-day intervals):

[Paul M]

8 hours ago, GalaxyGael said:

It did not show in my astap analysis, what did you use out of curiosity?

I'd also taken the liberty of downloading and plate solving your image with ASTAP, and also got a no show for asteroids down to mag 21.

Weird. I'll have another look at it when I get the chance. I'd specifically gone looking for asteroids and missed a nice one!

[MalcolmP]

13 hours ago, GalaxyGael said:

did not show in my astap 

4 hours ago, Paul M said:

 with ASTAP, and also got a no show for asteroids down to mag 21.

This is very strange, I get a 'show' for it in my astap but in the wrong place !

EDIT some time later ! : but that is using an "observation" made on the internet some days later so astap has no ref. to work from. So not strange at all ??? It is a png file so no fits header 

I usually use astap for local plate solve without internet, have just tried ** the asteroid tool with a newly downloaded mpcorbdat and it has Helena next to IC 607.    ** so I may have not set something else up correctly, but at least it knows it is in the area !!

Edited December 22, 2023 by MalcolmP

[GalaxyGael]

8 hours ago, MalcolmP said:

I used Stellarium, just done a double-check in CduC and it shows it ok,
 and for good measure this is an extract from JPL Horizons (for tonight)
101 Helena (A868 PA)  RA10:25:2 Dec+16 35'20" V.mag13.4

No more photo-ops for it and 62p they are parting company, you caught Helana at the right time just as it is beginning a retrograde loop from now until March next year.
For followers of little rocks I have made this plot in Stellarium (5-day intervals):

Fascinating, thanks. I found it also with stellarium. What a bit of luck on my part...

[MalcolmP]

3 hours ago, MalcolmP said:

  ** so I may have not set something else up correctly, but at least it knows it is in the area !!

Another clue to the error being a timing issue is the perfect alignment of the trail with my green arrow !

Thanks @GalaxyGael & @Paul M for the heads-up on ASTAP asteroid tool, it is showing loadsa rocks in my pics/files in my own 62p topic earlier here : 

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by MalcolmP

[GalaxyGael]

Astrobin's platesolver shows another asteroid, 35 Leukothea, a carbonaceous 'lump of coal' but I can see nothing in the image. Maybe it is the tiny orange speck at 11 o clock?

It doesn't pick up on 101 Helena or 62P comet though

 

Hmm, while some are re-processing to beat the band with new iterations of pixinsight tools, I can see a rabbit hole with asteroid chasing in heaps of old data in my future. Dont know if that's a good thing or a bad thing

Edited December 22, 2023 by GalaxyGael

[Paul M]

Ok, I've solved my asteroid problem.

I'd replaced the MPCORB.DAT file with an obscure Trans Neptunian Object file while tracking down one of those a couple of weeks ago.

So I just reverted back to the proper file and all is well.

You also got a few pixels of 1998 KU48.