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.
Very windy and cold conditions, but clear and transparent. Winds were gusting to 38 mph! I was setup behind my house which was blocking most of the wind for me. Unfortunately, the trees were blocking me from shooting the comet before the moon rose. I almost went to another spot, but with the wind so bad it would have been a disaster.
Lovejoy Q2 on Jan 7, 2015, 02:33 UT (Jan 6, 2015, 8:33 PM CST). 16×120 sec @ ISO 1600, TV-85 at F/5.6, Canon T3 DSLR (stock.)
A quickie processing job on data taken on Jan 6, 2015 at 02:53 UT (Jan 5, 8:53 pm CST.) This is 36×45 sec ISO 1600 sub-images taken with a Televue TV-85 at F/5.6 and a stock Canon T3 with no LPS filters in the image train.
A very bright moon was out while taking these shots, but it still shows a nice tail. Just think how good it will be when there is no moonlight to hinder the view!
Edit: This image appears at the Federalist online news site in a story about the comet and is available by clicking here: Catch A Comet! Lovejoy Is Lighting Up The Skies
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.
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.
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.
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.