Comet!

[fivemack]

As I came back from the Parkside ceilidh this evening, I noticed that the sky was clear, Comet Holmes visible to the naked eye as the corner of a triangle in Perseus which I knew wasn't there the last time I admired Perseus (the comet grew brighter by a factor 30,000 about ten days ago), and my brain not entirely befuddled. So I set up the most elaborate camera gear I had access to on a tripod in the garden, and got this:



I'm sure I can do better - I didn't set up the impressive telescope that major_clanger lent me, because there was only one of me and it was midnight, and I've really done very little processing on the raw camera output. In particular, there are bright green stars in the photo above, and those don't exist. That picture is a few-second exposure at 80mm f/2.8 ISO1000 with my Absurd Photojournalist Lens; exposures at 200mm f/2.8 make it look bigger but not obviously better:



The geometry of this comet is a bit odd - basically we're between it and the Sun, so the tail is pointing directly away from us and visible only as the elongation of the coma.

Comments

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

Oh nos! It's heading straight for us!

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Saw the same thing tonight in Denver, naked eye even in suburbia

[sparrowsion]

They had some amateur pictures of the comet on The Sky at Night, including one credited to "Dr Brian May". You know, I think they should groom him to take over as presenter when the sad day comes that Patrick Moore is finally devoured by his trousers.

Brightness

[(Anonymous)]

How much has its brightness changed since you did your photos? When I try to photograph it now, sky-glow clobbers my photos before I reach the limits of my camera.

Ed.