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Comet 103P Hartley

iamjulian

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DarkerSky

DarkerSky

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Super image Nick.

Had a good view of it last night at our Bedford Astro observing session in a 12" F7 dob I think it was. Picked out a brighter core surrounded by a diffuse coma with some elongation. Not bad from a town location :(

Overall it is quite a faint one with no colour visually and not as good as K5 McNaught earlier in the year IMO.

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John

John

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Thanks for the pictures Nick - confirms that I was looking in the right place as well.

Like John, I was pleased to find this, eventually, with my 4" refractor but it looked markedly better (obviously) with 6" aperture.

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badgerchap

badgerchap

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OK, I'm pretty sure I have it naked eye now (good dark sight) but only last night and it took a lot of straining, full dark adaption and averted vision. Was beautifully clear here, but I'm still dubious, TBH. Will look again in a few hours and see if the object has moved, giving me confirmation.

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cdd2455

cdd2455

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I set up both scopes tonight, couldn't see it in my 4 inch refractor, but a big easy to find smudge in my dob ( 20mm Nagler for x 75 or thereabouts ), just paned around from the double cluster and there it was. I tried my UHC-S filter and that improved the contrast a little, becoming a slightly more obvious smudge I think.

I'll try again in an hour or so - when it's a little higher - and I nead to warm up.

Clear Skies

Carl

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JamesC

JamesC

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Picked it up fairly easily last night from a reasonably dark site in Dartmoor using the 10x56 roof prism binoculars that I am yet to confess to owning in my signature. I don't do magnitude estimates yet - sorry - but it was a long way from being naked eye for me.

I fancied I could see a bit of a tail in my 12", but it might have been a hallucination. I vaguely thought I should try to work out if the tail was pointing away from the sun, but immediately decided that trying to work out which way was which in an inverting Dob at a weird angle and comparing it to wherever I thought the sun might be was more than I could be bothered with. A bit of a Homer Simpson moment, as I realised later that not only could I have compared the angle to stars that I recognised but my finder chart was showing me which way the tail should be pointing - doh! I didn't spend that long on the comet as I didn't find it that interesting.

I looked at Almach for the first time in a scope - now isn't that a pretty double.

The dew was just ridiculous last night. I have been resisting adding a dew shield to my light shroud, but it's going to have to be done. Camping mat and duct tape this weekend. The objective of my finder scope even dewed up, which never normally happens as it has a long camping mat dew shield. What is it with dew at this time of year?

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NickH

NickH

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Here's two views of Comet Hartley 103P from Faulkes North today (8th Oct) at pretty much closest approach to the double cluster.

Natural and aesthetic processeing

SDSS R,G,I' and U' band filters

10s integrations x5/channel

12:00UT

8th Oct 2010

4.7 Arcmin FOV

post-14410-133877490471_thumb.jpg

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r3i

r3i

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Mediaan combine on the comet, and SD combine on the star field..and 10s integrations :-) (2m scope!)

Marvellous image Nick and thanks for the info on the combines. Just one more question if I may, as I'm a total beginner with PS. What settings do you use to overlay the comet on top of the background star field?

I think you need to add it as an extra layer but do you then use some kind of mask?

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Breakintheclouds

Breakintheclouds

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At last, I've managed to see the comet with my cheap 10x50 bins (my new 15x70s are on their way, but I don't think I'll get them before Wednesday). One still needs to know where to look, but once the field is located there's a definite bright haze. The triangle at the top of Perseus is a useful landmark tonight.

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mdstuart

mdstuart

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Yes, its much brighter now. Just down and to the left of the bright star under the double cluster. Easy hazy spot in the 20 x 80mm. I am going to go out to see how quickly I can detect movement against the stars! Its brighter now than M33 in Triangulum and M110 tonight.

Mark

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RobertCL

RobertCL

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I managed to slew right to it about an hour ago using the coordinates from heavens-above and could just about make it out through my 6" reflector. But now, after I've looked at a few other objects, gone to get the camera and slewed back to it and I can't see it anymore. :(

Sky does seem a little less transparent than earlier, but I'd have thought a 10sec pic would show it up anyway.

I'm confused.

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