I took this picture of Comet Leonard passing by the globular star cluster Messier 3 on the morning of December 3. This image is only 7 photos stacked with a DSLR and star tracker. Coffee was very helpful since I was up at 3:45 AM.
To put this in perspective, Comet Leonard (C/2021) is approximately 35,005,000 kilometers (~ 21,700,000 million miles) from Earth, while Messier 3 is 39,000 light years away! Messier 3 is estimated to have over 500,000 stars in the globular cluster.
Comet Leonard was discovered by Gregory Leonard in January of 2021. Assuming Comet Leonard is in orbit, astronomers estimate the next time it will pass by Earth will be 80,000 years from now.
Messier 3 was the very first object Charles Messier discovered by himself in 1764. There is an estimated 500,000 stars within this globular star cluster.
“You alone are Yahweh. You created the heavens, the highest heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and the heavenly host worships You.” (Nehemiah 9:6)
Below are the details for how I acquired this image:
Details:- Date: December 3, 2021
- Location: Bortle 4
- Temperature: 0 C (32 F)
- Total Integration Time: 8 minutes, 20 seconds
Equipent:- Nikon D750
- Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD A011N
- iOptron Sky Guider Pro
- Feisol CT-3442 Tripod
- USB Dew Heater
Acquisition:- Focused on stars with live view
- 172 x 70" @ 400mm, ISO 5000, f/6.0
- Photographed from 3:45 to 6:45 AM local time
Pre-Processing:- Imported images in Adobe Bridge, edited in Camera RAW
- Adjusted hue, saturation, and balanced color with changes to temperature and tint
- Increase exposure, turned down contrast and highlights
- Applied Lens Correction, removed distortion
- Exported as TIFFs
- Followed this guide (Peter Zalinka)
Stacking:- Attempted stacking 77 frames in Deep Sky Stacker. Comet was messed up after the stack
- Manually chose 8 of the best pictures around 4:00 AM local time
- Stacked them in Sequator
- Exported stacked image as TIFF
Post-Processing:- Edited in Adobe Photoshop CC
- Stretched image
- Applied a few S-curves
- Added a Camera RAW filter, focused on neutralizing background
- Stretched image again
- Added a couple more S-curves
- Added final Camera RAW filter, focused on adding some saturation and cleaning up noise
Clear skies and God Bless!
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