Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE from Bortle 4, KHartnett
Powered byPixInsight

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE from Bortle 4

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE from Bortle 4, KHartnett
Powered byPixInsight

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE from Bortle 4

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Drove about 50 minutes away from home (Bortle 5/6) to a spot that was mapped as Bortle 4. Some high clouds present. I had hoped to start imaging at 10 pm, but due to equipment problems, didn't start until closer to 10:30 pm. I chose to shoot at ISO 3200 to keep my exposure times to 20 seconds because my unguided, ight-duty, EQ-2 mount showed trailing stars if I went any longer.

I took flats, but my home-made light box was not oriented correctly, so when I processed the lights, I got some bad noise. Reprocessing without the flats helped this considerably.

A friend took my lightly processed final file and ran it through Topaz Labs Denoise AI to clean it up. I then finished the processing in Photshop.

My effective focal length was 335 mm, much longer than I wanted, but at least I could rotate the camera in the telescope to frame the comet. Using a telephoto lens/camera with a ball mount on the lightweight EQ-2 was just too hard and delicate to manage. Trying to do a slight adjustment caused me to repeatedly lose the comet completely.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE from Bortle 4, KHartnett