Skybadger Observatory
This is the website of Skybadger.net, dedicated to all aspects of Astronomy from the Skybadger observatory : observing, imaging, building instruments and getting results.
This is the website of Skybadger.net, dedicated to all aspects of Astronomy from the Skybadger observatory : observing, imaging, building instruments and getting results.
The key equipment for imaging comets tends to be a widefield camera. For me that means the DSLR with fixed lens on the Skywatcher star adventurer mount on a tripod
somewhere in a field, since comets are typically post-sunset or pre-sunrise low altitude objects that need a low horizon - one thing I don't get from my garden.
For the higher and brighter comets it becomes possible to use longer exposures to try to capture the ion and dust tails using longer exposures. These images need longer exposures or multiple stacked short expposures
which need tracking of the stars and re-stacking on the comet nucleus to get both the stationary star background and the moving comet to their best advantage.
For the fainter and smaller comets, the observatory short focus scopes will do - up to 800mm focal length for the larger end with visible and even coloured nuclei and not much coma,
while the really faint and almost stellar comets that donlt show much of a tail at all need as much aperture as I can use.
In practice its whatever I have available in the short windows of opportunity available.
Image of comet 12p Pons-Brooks taken at 19:45 on the evening of 26 February 2024 using the 12.5" RC at Prime focus and focal length of 2005mm.
This is about 1 hr after sunset and 12 degrees above the absolute horizon and getting close to my local horizon.
This is a single frame from the sequence - you can see frost on the sensor in the horizontal banding due to the internal cooler having a little tizz.
I couldn't get a larger field image setup working to complement this one. Other images from elsewhere show a tail about 5 degreees long and part disconnected.
This field is approx 32' x 24'.
The overall magnitude at the time was about mv = 8.0.
Comet Lovejoy imaged in 2013 using a DSLR on tripod from side garden. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker.
19/11/2013 06:25 Nikon D5000 ISO400 120 seconds stack of 10, lights, darks and flats.