Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Auriga (Aur)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
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Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020, Dzmitry Kananovich
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Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020

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Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020, Dzmitry Kananovich
Powered byPixInsight

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Staying away from my usual location, I am technically somewhat unprepared for comet imaging. I took only a 24-105 mm f/4 zoom lens with me, which is a bit "slow" and has never been intended for astrophotography. Luckily, I also have an iOptron SkyTracker to enable longer exposures and skies are relatively dark here, in Domat/Ems. So, in the morning of 10 July, I managed to collect some useful data and tried to reveal the comet's ion tail. Still looks dim on the pic, more noticeable on the starless image.

I started to capture frames when the comet nucleus was behind the mountain. However, the comet’s tail was already visible even with unaided eye and especially spectacular through 8x40 mm binoculars. It looked if somebody turned on a flashlight on the mountain slope. After few minutes, bright nucleus appeared. Stunning view!

Altogether I captured about 120 frames, between 1:44 and 2:09 UT. However, the skies repidly became bright and the comet tail started to dissipate in the morning twilight. Later I had to discard several frames because of the low contrast. The whole captured sequence can be watched here:

[url= https://www.dropbox.com/s/unp3h0w3spmm14y/NEOWISE%20120x10sek.mp4?dl=0]Comet NEOWISE timelapse[/url]

Additional technical / processing details:

Comet: 71x10 s, ISO 1600, aligned on comet and stacked in Pixinsight, frames taken between 1:51-2:05 UT.

Stars: 71x10 s, ISO 1600, star alignment and stacking in Pixinsight.

Ground: single 10 s exposure, ISO 1600.

Combined in Photoshop CC.

Comments

Revisions

  • Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020, Dzmitry Kananovich
    Original
  • Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020, Dzmitry Kananovich
    B
  • Final
    Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020, Dzmitry Kananovich
    D

B

Description: Starless image

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D

Description: Enhanced contrast and color saturation

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Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) with ion tail - 10 July 2020, Dzmitry Kananovich

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Comets