Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) Comet-Aligned Stack, Steve Sells
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) Comet-Aligned Stack
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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) Comet-Aligned Stack

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Description

Taken 7/18/2020 at 10:31 pm PDT at Coyote Lake County Park in Santa Clara County, California. This picture is made from a sequence of 61 frames, each 5 seconds at f/2.0, ISO 100. I used the Nikon D5600's internal intervalometer to shoot the sequence as quickly as possible, one frame every 6 seconds, minimizing the movement of the comet relative to the stars. I stacked the frames, first aligned on the stars, then made another stacking aligned on the comet. I used the PixInsight module StarNet++ to remove the stars from the comet-aligned image and then again to make a star mask from the star-aligned image. In Photoshop, using the star mask, I blended the stars from the star-aligned image with the starless comet image. Then, since StarNet++ had removed most of the head of the comet when it removed the stars, I blended in the head of the comet from the original comet-aligned image.

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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) Comet-Aligned Stack, Steve Sells