AstroBin - Comet 8P/Tuttle and M33 Encounter, Dec 30, 2007 (mikebrous)

Comet 8P/Tuttle and M33 Encounter, Dec 30, 2007

Contains: Comet, , Comet 8p/tuttle

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Televue TV-85, Meade SN8

Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT

Mounts: Orion Atlas EQ-G

Guiding telescopes or lenses: Celestron 102mm F/5 Achromat, Celestron Comet Catcher SN f/3.64

Guiding cameras: Meade DSI I Pro

Focal reducers: TeleVue TRF-2008

Software: Iris, Patrick Chevalley's Cartes du Ciel, PHD guiding

Filters: Hutech IDAS-LPS-FF

Resolution: 1664x1179

Dates: Oct. 6, 2007, Dec. 4, 2007, Dec. 30, 2007

Locations: Maurice Louisiana

Frames:
27x180" ISO1600 bin 1x1
30x300" ISO1600 bin 1x1
81x60" ISO1600 bin 1x1

Integration: 5.2 hours

Darks: ~28

Flats: ~12

Bias: ~20

Avg. Moon age: 23.34 days

Avg. Moon phase: 38.02%

From Sky and Telescope's website, "This Week's Sky at a Glance, January 06, 2008 10:12 PM," by Alan M. MacRobert:

"On the evening of December 30th, Mike Broussard of Maurice, Louisiana, caught Comet Tuttle passing very close by M33, the Pinwheel galaxy in Triangulum. This is, in part, a composite image. He used a Televue 85-mm refractor to take 81 60-second exposures, and merged the result with his previous images of M33 taken with the Televue 85-mm and with an 8-inch Schmidt-Newtonian telescope."

This image also appears in the Lowell Observer, Summer 2008 Newsletter published by Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ.