Probably my best Comet Lovejoy image to date. Lots of subs and setting up especially for shooting it helped quite a bit. I missed shooting ISON because of setting up for Lovejoy unfortunately. Oh, well…
Below is the Star Streaks version.
Continue reading Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1) on November 8, 2013
After shooting Comet Lovejoy, I had just enough time to shoot 4 to 8 sub-images of Comet ISON. By that time, the sky was getting bright with the approaching sunrise and these images were all too blue. But, I decided to try and put together a display picture anyway since it had been since Nov 4th that I last shot some images of it.
I shot this right after shooting 18 sub-images of Comet ISON. Twilight was already approaching really fast and by the time I got 7 images taken, the sky was too blue to continue. So, this version is lightened up somewhat to bring out the faint details that I couldn’t get because I didn’t get enough sub-images. It shows the comet well enough, at least.
Below, I have included the star-streaks version:
I was experimenting with high ISO settings and short exposures for this impromptu imaging session of Comet ISON. I went with 1 minute at ISO 3200, which is equivalent to 4 minutes at ISO 800, the ISO setting I was using for most of my other ISON images. That is double what I was using before. Yes, its noisier, but tolerable in the cool 47 degree temps I had that morning.
Also, this is the full field of my imaging rig. The only cropping done was to remove places where the sub-images did not overlap. I wanted to demonstrate how large the comet is getting.
I shot comet ISON on the morning of November 3rd, 2013. I devoted most of the morning to Comet Lovejoy, but there was still enough time to get nearly 30 good sub-images of this object which is enough to make a pretty decent image. Clicking the picture brings up a half-of-full-size enlargement. Click here to see the image at the camera’s full resolution. The “star-streaks” version is below:
Comet Lovejoy is dominating the comet fiesta that is now occurring in our skies. It is the brightest and the biggest, by far! My most recent images show a 70 arc-minute tail that is best seen in the negative inset view.
I was looking at some unprocessed data recently (Oct 5, 2014) and found this set of 40 sub-images taken at ISO 6400. It was a batch of 60 second subs, so only 40 minutes worth of integration. It came out surprisingly well for just 40 minutes. I’ll have to try some more with that setting and see if I can get some dimmer nebulae.
A very small and dim comet in the early evening skies of Pegasus. A star streaks version of the image is below.
Continue reading Comet Brewington on November 2, 2013, 17:10 UT
Seven sub-images done quickly before twilight turned the sky too blue.
Friday, November 1st, 2013 was clear and cool. I was convinced that Saturday morning would be crystal clear and I could get some great shots of all the comets in the sky. Unfortunately, the sub-tropical jet stream intruded and brought with it high altitude clouds and ruined my plans to do my comet imaging.
I shot lots of subs for ISON, but deleted more than I kept because most had clouds in them. Some had tree branches and I kept them because I had nothing else. Consequently, the image quality suffered with the low number of sub-images and the gradients introduced by the tree branches in the pics. Oh, well…
BTW, the star-streaks version is below: