Here’s the best image so far from my efforts to image C/2015 Q2 (Lovejoy).   I was shooting it simultaneously with a 200mm telephoto that was mounted above the Televue TV-85 APO imaging refractor.

On Sunday, January 18, 2015, the skies were finally crystal clear.  I used a 18-55mm Canon kit lens and shot Lovejoy Q2 with it.   Not exactly the image scale I wanted, but I needed to test that lens anyway, since I’ve never used it before.

I did not have an LP filter for this and it shows.  I went 2 minutes at F/5.6 and it was almost too much.  With the Lumicon or IDAS filters I own, I could go 5 to 8 minutes easily.

Update:   Improved Image

Here’s the shot I wanted to get the other day, but I missed it.  On this night, I devoted more time to imaging with the 200mm telephoto than I did the TV-85, because I really wanted to see it with the telephoto.   Unfortunately, my Bogen ball-head camera mount did not hold well with the camera oriented in a portrait mode to get the full length of the comet.  I had to orient it landscape and that cut some of the tail off.  But, at least I got a good portion of it with this arrangement.

Clouds and fog hindered my imaging session for the evening of Jan 16, 2015 (CST.)   I had to throw out lots of sub-images for this and the stack ended up with a lot of noise because some subs with clouds got in regardless of my efforts.

Finally, after more than a week of solid clouds, the sky was clear enough to take some more images of Comet Lovejoy.  Conditions were poor, however, with variable clouds and bad transparency.   I made the most of it and shot some images with the TV-85 and also with my 200mm F/2.8 telephoto.