C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) - Comet
"The comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) was discovered on October 2, 2017 with the 1.8-m Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii. It is expected to become brighter than 10th magnitude during the long period from December 2019 to August 2020 and will move in northern regions of the night sky. From December 2019 to June 2020 it was circumpolar for Central Europe. In late spring 2020, it reached 8th size class and thus, became a rewarding object for astrophotographers (according to WAA, translated)."
http://www.waloszek.de/inhalt_astro_dso_c2017t2_e.html"C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS) is an Oort cloud comet discovered on 2 October 2017 when it was 9.2 AU (1.38 billion km) from the Sun. The closest approach to Earth was on 28 December 2019 at a distance of 1.52 AU (227 million km). It came to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 4 May 2020[2] when it was safe from disintegration at 1.6 AU from the Sun. (Mars is also roughly 1.6 AU from the Sun.)
Comet C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS) brightened to apparent magnitude 8 and was visible with 50mm binoculars.[3][4] In early June 2020 the comet was near the magnitude 1.8 star Dubhe in Ursa Major.
JPL Horizons using an epoch 1950 orbit solution models that C/2017 T2 took millions of years to come from the Oort cloud at a distance of roughly 74,000 AU (1.2 ly)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2017_T2_(PanSTARRS)"Comet T2 PanSTARRS passed 1.52 AU from Earth on New Year’s Eve 2019. The comet is on a prograde, half a million year orbit with a high 57 degree inclination relative to the ecliptic plane. The comet broke +10th magnitude on New Year’s Day 2020, and passed near the famous Double Cluster on January 22nd on the Cassiopeia/Perseus border.
A Loooong Orbit
On a 550,000- plus year orbit, Comet T2 PanSTARRS last visited the inner solar system way back when in the late Pleistocene era. T2 PanSTARRS won’t visit the inner solar again until over half a million years from now."
https://www.universetoday.com/144774/catch-comet-t2-panstarrs-this-spring/-----------------------
Trying to process data that has some time, this time I chose to do the first comet that Maurizio photographed in March 2020 (I have others waiting...), when we had only a few months after starting our astrophotographic activity and it is comet 2017 T2 PanSTARRS.
He was only able to do two sessions of this celestial body, and they are the two cropped images that have been exhibited.
When Maurizio did the sessions of the comet it was crossing the constellation of Cassiopea.
The first image 'Original' is the session done on 2020-03-07 with fewer frames but it was a bit more laborious since it used the Enhance and L-Pro filter, and I had to process them separately and then combine them into an end image.
The second and 'Final' image had more frames made on 2020-03-17, and more easy to process although is not much the difference notice between the two sessions, I guess as the comet still was very far even with our scope.
Is not spectacular as was the Neowise in that year, but at least we was witnesses of its passage close to Earth on its long impressive journey and pleased that we were able to capture it anyway.
The stacks were made in DSS and I can say that now it is probably easier to elaborate comet subject by counting StarXterminator or Starnett V2 to do the subtraction of the stars since it leaves the stars field where the comet lay more cleaner with these instruments, and to be able to work later more comfortably the comet alone in the second passage, cleaning if they remain, some of the trails left by the brightest stars.
Thank you for visiting us and we wish you Clear Skies!
Processed May 2022
https://twitter.com/AstroOtus/status/1532030722717925376https://twitter.com/AstroOtus/status/1532030731567906817
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