Comet 126P/IRAS (William Maxwell)

Comet 126P/IRAS

First discovered in 1983 by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, this comet is currently between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter at magnitude 14.6.

This was easily the most difficult processing of any image I have done. The subs showed no evidence of the comet and stacking via the stars didn't help due to the comet's movement. To make a very LONG story short:

1. I stacked the stars
2. Registered a map of current path and overlayed that onto my image ("revision" B)
3. Finally after hours I found a tiny tiny blob almost lost in the sensor noise moving along the path
4. Ran a second stack registered on the moving blob
5. Composited the two stacks.

I used only 71 of the 205 subs since the comet must have been lost below the sensor noise in all the others.

All this in only 12 hours... I'm taking it as a personal victory though. Even J Gibson, using a 1.2 meter scope to confirm the find in 1983, commented that the comet "was not obviously cometary" (the comet thankfully was closer to Earth in my image [119 million miles] and showed a bit of the tail). Imaging a comet at this distance is really only capturing its diffuse halo. There is no defined "point". Its like imaging a faint galaxy without the galaxy's core..

I challenge you to find it! ....and this is AFTER the stack. On the 2 minute subs it wasn't more than a small bit that looked like sensor noise. "Revision" C gives a pop out box. I could have used a longer focal length, but the comet would have wandered out of the frame.

Things were greatly helped by perhaps the best night of the year- clear and especially dark. I spent an hour with binoculars cruising the Milky Way.

Final
Original
B
C

B

Title: Location map overlay

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: Pop out box

Uploaded: ...

Cloudy Nights

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	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

	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

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	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8443476
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Comet 126P/IRAS

Comet 126P/IRAS

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

C

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Comet 126P/IRAS

Comet 126P/IRAS

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

C

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

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?

Delete this revision?

Delete this revision?

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