Comet 103/P Hartley - much ado about not much

[brianb]

A rare clear night allowed me to look for Comet Hartley, which is at the moment excellently placed near the zenith. It wasn't easy to find; perhaps the moon didn't help but only a suspicion of a smudge in the finder (9x50) and mot much more than that with 80mm x24.

My piggyback mount wasn't operational (I long ago borrowed a critical part for some other task) so I was reduced to trying to image it in extreme wide field with a static camera and a 50mm f/1.4 lens. I did manange to record it - the characteristic green blob near the centre of this cropped image - but it was hardly worth the effort. This comet is not a notable object!

2010 Sep 30, around 0240 UT. Canon 40D, 50mm, 30 x 10 sec @ f/1.4, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.