My second attempt to capture the tail of comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura on the morning of Sep 6th 2023 during nautical twilight from Northern Germany. This time, I decreased the exposure time of the subs to 5 s, so the Comet Alignment module in PI was able to fit PSFs on the brighter central part of the comets coma in order to register the subs correctly. Unfortunately, the nautical twilight and small patches of haze introduced quite complex gradients which are impossible to separate from the fainter parts of the comets tail. Therefore, I tried to find the best compromise between preserving the fainter parts of the tail and darkening the background.
06.09.2023, 02:38 UT - 03:01 UT
EquipmentZWO ASI 1600 MM Pro @ -20°C
+ C14 & Starizona Hyperstar v2 @ 675 mm (f/1.9)
+ Baader 2" L filter
+ Celestron EF
+ Tempest Cooler
+ Omegon Dew Heater
+ Astrozap Dew Shield for C 14 Hyperstar
on CGE-Pro mount
Cable managment to mitigate Hyperstar diffraction spikes.
Autoguiding:
Artesky 70 mm Guidscope (f=400 mm)
ZWO ASI 120 MM mini
PhD2 (Multistarguiding)
Dither every 4 subs
light frames:
L (gain=75, offset=15)
acquired with N.I.N.A.
Remaining Issues- low s/n ratio of the fainter parts of the tail wrt the complex sky background
Post-Processing
PixInsightL- image calibration (darks only) & image registration on the stars with WBPP script
- comet registration
- image integration without pixel rejection
- dynamic crop
- DBE
- Fast Rotation -> Horizontal & Vertical Mirror
- BXT
- Blackpoint definition GHS (linear)
- GHS
- removing first image layer with MLT
- NXT (Denoise: 0.4)
Location: Schwentinental (Germany)
- CS Daniel
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