Through the Clouds - Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks 17-03-24

[WolfieGlos]

Attempted to capture this one last night with some promising early clear skies and a 58% Moon.

After a quick setup before dusk, everything aligned and the comet located, of course the clouds started to roll in after only 3 minutes of 20s frames 😫 Although it was still visible through passing clouds for another 25 minutes or so, each frame consisted of moving cloud so it required some brutal and patchy processing to try and get anything out of this. Large black streaks which I mistook for both tree branches and poor flat frame calibration, turned out to be artifacts from the passing clouds. I clone stamped a lot of them out, but some remain in the tail which really annoy me.

I was nearly going to throw the data away, but I managed to get something out of it. Not my best image by any means, but happy to have captured the Comet. Hopefully some clear skies present themselves soon so I can have another attempt.

Starfield 102 + ASI 585MC with Astronomik L2 UV/IR Filter. 66 x 20s frames, with darks, flats and flat-darks stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. Comet and stars stacked separately and combined.