Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  10.97  ·  102 iot Tau  ·  103 Tau  ·  11 Tau  ·  11.56  ·  11.77  ·  12.00  ·  12.21  ·  124 Alkeste  ·  128 Nemesis  ·  13.17  ·  13.23  ·  16 Tau  ·  17 Tau  ·  18 Tau  ·  19 q Tau  ·  21 Tau  ·  22 Tau  ·  23 Tau  ·  241 Germania  ·  25 eta Tau  ·  26 Tau  ·  27 Tau  ·  32 Tau  ·  33 Tau  ·  36 Tau  ·  37 A01 Tau  ·  38 Leda  ·  39 A02 Tau  ·  40 Harmonia  ·  And 121 more.
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Comet 46P/Wirtanen, Pleiades, and Aldebaran on 12/18/2018 (75mm), JDJ
Powered byPixInsight

Comet 46P/Wirtanen, Pleiades, and Aldebaran on 12/18/2018 (75mm)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Comet 46P/Wirtanen, Pleiades, and Aldebaran on 12/18/2018 (75mm), JDJ
Powered byPixInsight

Comet 46P/Wirtanen, Pleiades, and Aldebaran on 12/18/2018 (75mm)

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

I was able to image Comet 46P/Wirtanen for a second time two nights after closest approach to Earth. The skyglow from the nearly full moon was really bad, and the images suffer accordingly. Still, fun to capture a few more images and it was interesting to see how far the comet progressed in the sky relative to the Pleiades over the course of a few nights. Imaged at both 50 mm and 75 mm focal lengths. This is the 75 mm focal length image.

Imaged with a Nikon D750, 75-150 mm Nikon Series E lens at 75 mm and F/4. Exposures were 30s at ISO400. Stacked using DSS for a total integration time of 30 minutes (subtracted darks, bias, and flats). Processed in Pixinsight: Cropped, gradient removal with DBE, Background Neutralization, Color Calibration, stretched using Histogram Transformation Tool, Curves Transformation, and ACDNR noise reduction.

Note - Tried stacking these a couple different ways in DSS since the comet trails using standard stacking with 30 minutes of integration time. I found that the Comet and Stars + Comet stacking approaches remove the comet trailing, but I could see the star trails faintly and lost the nice green comet color in the comet stacked versions. Probably an issue with my DSS usage, but presenting the standard star stacked image here (with comet trailed) since the colors are better.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Comet 46P/Wirtanen, Pleiades, and Aldebaran on 12/18/2018 (75mm), JDJ

In these public groups

Solar System Imaging
Cloudy Nights

In these collections

Comets