Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE (KHartnett)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Solar system body or event

Powered byPixInsight

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

Powered byPixInsight

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

I used a "stock" Canon 75-300mm zoom lens set at 100mm and f/4.5. There was a bright, first quarter moon in the sky. The comet was pretty weak in my 10x50 binoculars, so I didn't have much hope of pulling out details in the tail. I used every trick I know to make the faint ion tail visible above the bright background. In the process, the comet's head got pretty weird looking. When I learn more about masking or stacking on a comet's head rather than the stars, maybe I can go back and improve the result. I did crop the image, which natively was about 12.8 degrees in width. From the comet's head to the upper right hand corner of the image is now something like 6.5 to 7 degrees.

About 10 additional subs showed noticeable star trailing when zoomed in- it was breezy and the gusts were just strong enough to shake things a bit. I might reprocess the group again and include these so as to improve the signal to noise ratio. I didn't take flats at the time either, so taking these and adding them may help things too.

I must say I'm pretty amazed at the number of faint NGC objects that were recorded in such a bright sky. I noticed NGC 4214 in the ion tail while I was processing the image, and the elongated galaxy NGC 4244 as well, but had no idea that these other smudges identified in the plate-solving were distant objects.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3706003
PixInsight job	1P9400RJE9ZYMPRFJ4QBGZ8OR1TZ53Q7
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	12h04m17s.99
RA (top/left)	11h55m37s.67
RA (top/right)	12h27m49s.66
RA (bottom/right)	12h13m58s.98
RA (bottom/left)	11h40m32s.92

Dec (center)	+36°49′47″.5
Dec (top/left)	+32°25′32″.2
Dec (top/right)	+36°24′05″.8
Dec (bottom/right)	+41°10′47″.1
Dec (bottom/left)	+36°57′45″.1

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information