Dec 31, 2014, 04:21 UT. 16×60 sec @ ISO 1600 and 16×240 sec @ ISO 400. TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Hutech Canon XS.
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 31, 2014
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Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) – Christmas 2014
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on Dec 25, 2014. 9×180 sec @ ISO 1600, Celestron C8 at F/6.3, IDAS-LPS, Hutech Canon XS. Starfreeze and Star-Streaks processing.
Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) Dec 17, 2014
Finally rising high enough to image where I live, Lovejoy Q2 is already putting on a show. It will be getting even brighter than it is now towards X-mass and the first part of January.
Date: Dec 17, 2014, 07:23 UT
Telescope: C8 w/FR/FF at F/6.3 or 1260mm f.l.
Camera: modified Canon T3
Exposure: 20 x 180 sec @ ISO 3200.
Comet Q2 – Big and Bright
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.
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.
Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) Animation
Well, I got my first images of Comet Lovejoy, C/2014 Q2, but unfortunately, they were all shots that had tree branches in them. The comet was still too low for my location at the time the shots were taken. I have since chopped the trees down that were causing this mess, so hopefully I’ll get something better in the near future. The above animation was all I could salvage from the images.
C8 Image of The Horse Head Nebula
After the moon had set on Dec 1, 2014, I decided to let the camera and guiding run while I slept and take images of the Horse Head Nebula region. I managed to get 33 good sub-images before the clouds messed up the tracking.
Galaxy NGC 925
I wanted to see what this was. It appears to be a spiral galaxy. With just 18 sub-images, it is only barely visible. I might come back to this one with longer exposures and 4 times as many subs to bring it out better.
Open Cluster M103 in Cassiopeia
A bright moon precludes imaging dim nebula or galaxies, but not open clusters. Here’s one in Cassiopeia I’ve not imaged in quite some time, if ever.
M15 Globular Cluster
It has been so long since I imaged with the C8 I forgot how big a globular would look in it. To satisfy my curiosity, I shot M15 at the start of my imaging session on Nov 29, 2014. I had to crop out the distortion in the corners, so this is roughly a 60% crop of the central region.
NGC 4565 – Edge-on Galaxy
This is a “quickie” of one of my favorite deep sky objects, taken with my Celestron C8 SCT. Edge-on galaxy NGC 4565 is the best example of the edge-on galaxy class in the sky. I shot this right before sunrise when the object was just high enough to start imaging. It could use more time and I’ll probably add to it (I did on Nov 29, 2014 – an additional 40 minutes of data.) I’m pleased at what I have so far. I haven’t seen it in quite some time and it was nice to image it again.