| Description: |
As of this writing, this comet is between the
orbit of Mercury and Venus but well north of the plane of the solar system
at a calculated distance from earth of 1.1 au and 0.9 au from the Sun.
At the time of the exposures, it was in the constellation of Cepheus.
The FOV of this image is approximately 14 x 20 arc-min. West is up.
|
| Exposure Data: |
3/1/2003. RGB: 6x2m, 6x2m, 6xm, RGB 2x2.
-20°C, 1.62 arc-sec./pixel.
|
| Processing: |
Acquired via Maxim, reduced and
aligned, and combined in Mira, RGB combined 0.85:0.89:1.0
in Maxim, curves, levels, star field assembly and other processing in Photoshop.
|
| Optical System: |
10” Ritchey-Chretien by RCOS @ F/9, ST-8E USB NABG/CFW-8A
CCD camera, unguided, Paramount ME mount.
|
| Comments: |
A difficult object to image due to its late
rising and low horizon position position. The average elevation was
25°. The comet was tracked at its orbital rate, then the star field
was tracked at sidereal rate and the images combined in Photoshop.
Star field gradients, in addition to flat fields, were used to preserve the
faint detail in the ion tail and the beginnings of a dust tail.
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