Comet Q2 – Big and Bright

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C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 17, 2014. 20×180 sec @ ISO 3200, C8 at F/6.3, IDAS-LPS, modified Canon T3.  Light version.
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 17, 2014. 1x180 sec @ ISO 3200, C8 at F/6.3, IDAS-LPS, modified Canon T3.
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 17, 2014. 20×180 sec @ ISO 3200, C8 at F/6.3, IDAS-LPS, modified Canon T3.  Dark version.

Finally, a clear night and no trees obstructing the view!   Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) was out and easily spotted in binoculars.  I did some 3 minute exposures and they showed it as a large bright coma and a very faint tail.   The light and dark images above are a  quick processing job on the sub-images I obtained.   Below is a star streak version of the same data that shows the extent of the coma better.

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 17, 2014. 20x180 sec @ ISO 3200, C8 at F/6.3, IDAS-LPS, modified Canon T3.
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 17, 2014. 20×180 sec @ ISO 3200, C8 at F/6.3, IDAS-LPS, modified Canon T3.

Here is all 20 sub-images I managed to shoot in a quick additive stack.  The tail is there but very faint.  There was some smearing of the pseudo-nucleus with 3 minute exposures, but I needed to go that long to get a bit of that faint tail.

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