Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak – Closest to Earth Day

Comet 41P on Apr 1, 2017, 03:40 UT. 80×120 sec @ ISO 3200, TV-85 a F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3.

On Friday evening, March 31st (April 1st in Universal Time) I drove out to a dark sky site and got as many images of Comet 41P as I could.  41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak was closest to Earth on this day and I was hoping I could document the encounter.

Comet 41P size compared to Full Moon image taken with the same equipment.

I ended up with 80 good sub-images out of about 100.   Unfortunately, I had guiding problems, equipment issues and mount troubles.    A bad connection on my new battery pack kept me from starting until I re-rigged it and during the night the mount kept making knocking noises and jerking in RA, making lines instead of star points every 5 to 10 sub-images.   I’ll have to figure that one out, since it never did that before.

At least it was very dark and transparent.   I was camera noise limited and not LP limited for my exposures.   It was kind of weird to shoot 7 minute subs and see that I still had a ways to go before mid-histogram.   I wish it was like that every time.   lol