I woke up at 4:00 AM. Did I really want to get out of my nice warm bed, try not to wake up my wife, and go out in the freezing cold to do this? Of course I did! I had left the covered scope and mount out for the night - first time I ever did that. The plastic bag over them was covered with desert dew, and the computer table I left out that should have been brought inside the night before after imaging the Cone Nebula was covered with frosty ice. Since moving to Arizona from Wyoming I'm not used to those conditions any more!
Thanks to the "In the Sky" website I was easily able to find the comet with the coordinates they gave. I tried using PHD's comet tracking function, but apparently I need a bit more practice with that! So I decided, since these were short exposures, to just let the mount track without any tracking assistance, and it worked out fine (thankfully after all the effort I'd gone to at that point!). There were only 3 subs with satellite trails in them
- unfortunately par for the course in the northern sky.
This image is from 18 subs of 60 seconds each plus 10 subs of 30 seconds @ ISO 800.
Total integration time: 23 minutes.
Comments