Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
Learning to Process Comets - C/2022 E3 (ZTF), Patrick Manley
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Learning to Process Comets - C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

Learning to Process Comets - C/2022 E3 (ZTF), Patrick Manley
Powered byPixInsight

Learning to Process Comets - C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

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Description

I’m a little late to the main attraction here, but I learned a ton about comet capture and processing in this exercise.  

“The Green Comet” has fallen out of favor of many astronomers now that it is fading in its path away from Earth.  I am always mesmerized by people’s image captures of comets and consider these imagers practically magicians.  Many people don’t realize how much more complicated capturing and processing comets are compared to the complexity of deep space or other solar system objects.   With respect to the star field around the comet, the comet moves MUCH faster than those stars.  This presents a few problems.  If during capture, your exposure goes too long you will get a streaky comet core.  This should be avoided.  If you process your captured frames by aligning on the stars, you will also get a streaky comet.  If you process your captures by aligning on the comet - you will get a streaky star field.  I have never successfully captured and processed a faster moving comet before, and it took me a few tries to get through this to this result.

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Learning to Process Comets - C/2022 E3 (ZTF), Patrick Manley