46P/Wirtanen 2018-Dec-12 Chris Schur

This comet presents a challenging target for imagers of all skill levels. Long deep exposures such as this for a fast moving comet reveal intricate faint details, but are very intensive to process correctly. Here, the comet was processed separately using a new powerful combine method and the stars were processed separately as well. The two images were then aligned and registered with the first image in the set for high accuracy. Color was added in a similar fashion. The faint tail is seen as a dim ray heading off to the lower right. A slightly brighter appendage to the upper left may be an anti tail, as it is very near orbital plane crossing at this time.

Lens: 10" f/3.9 Astrograph with Baader MPCC coma corrector
Platform: Astrophysics AP1200
Camera: SBIG ST10xme
Exposure: 90m
Location: Payson, Arizona
Elevation: 5150 ft.
Sky: Seeing 7/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature: 30F
Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2

Photo info

Popular tags

Random image