A closer pairing of Comet Lovejoy and the Little Dumbbell Nebula on the night of Feb 20, 2015, plus another tail disruption event was in progress.
Comet Lovejoy & The Little Dumbbell Nebula – Take Two
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Comet Lovejoy & The Little Dumbbell Nebula
The last significant encounter with another Messier object for Comet Lovejoy Q2 before it dims down more and moonlight eventually spoils the view. The best part of the apparition is about over. From now on, the comet will get fainter as it recedes from Earth and heads back out into deep space.
Its has been a fun time imaging this bright comet over the last two months. I had good public exposure with 2 news organizations publishing two of my images, one of them being NBCNews.com. Hopefully, another bright comet will soon appear and put on another show for us. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 🙂
Comet Lovejoy Animation – Feb 7th to Feb 15th, 2015
Comet Lovejoy Fades – Lost Lots of Its Tail
Looks like the disconnection event over the last two days has shortened Lovejoy down to a nub. I expect that it might grow back a new tail, hopefully.
Here’s an another version of the data, but I added 35 minutes more of exposure to the mix:
The Orion Nebula with a Stock DSLR
Comet Lovejoy Tail Disruption Event
The nearly disconnected tail of Lovejoy blowing in the solar wind. Something in the local space environment disrupted it within the last 2 days, it seems. Probably some kind of solar event like a CME or rogue magnetic field change caused this.
Comet Lovejoy Possible Tail Disconection Event
A big knot moving down the tail of Comet Lovejoy with the old tail partially disconnected and hanging on as best as it can.
M78 Reflection Nebula in Orion
Good transparency and cold temps helps to get good images at ISO 800. 5 minutes subs are not too noisy and stack up nicely. This image is only 110 minutes of integration and could use more time, but it came out fine for an unmodified camera.
The full size version is here.
Comet Lovejoy’s Fantail on Feb 11, 2015, 01:00 UT
Moving further west each night, Comet Lovejoy Q2 continues to change and present a different profile each day. It has gone back to a fan tail with streamers, much like it looked back on Jan 25 and Jan 16, 2015. There is a pattern there, but the period remains elusive.
Continuing Comet Lovejoy Coverage
Here’s another comet image. Not as bright as it was, but still putting on a good show.