Comet Macholz

[kochu]

Hi ,
One of my efforts at Comet Macholz. Single shot taken a shortwhile ago /1600ISO/30 sec/LX90/Canon 300 D.

Kochu/21-12-04

P.S.I am not sure whether I can load the pic along with this posting as attachment. Anyhow,let me try!!

[Airconvent]

Thanks Kochu. The first shot of Macholz!
As I suspected, there is no tail currently , probably due to the orientation from the sun and earth
And only a 30-second exposure....shows how good the canon 300D is. I think I can set my 4300 to 1 min and will still not see anything!

Patiently waiting for the efforts of the other comet hunter Matt....intersting to see if this comet has any colour....

rich

[kochu]

Hi Rich,

I managed to take about 30 shots today. I do not know whether stacking or some post processing will bringout tail. However the sky condition was not very good today.
Sure , Matthew can produce far better images with his modified Canon and expertise.

Kochu/21-12-04

[MCYM]

That's beautiful, Kochu
With 30 frames, you can literally create a movie of this comet.
Matthew

[weixing]

Hi,
Nice... I haven't saw this comet yet Quite busy these few days.

Anyway, do you use prime focus?? Also, they seem to have a "hole" in the coma... is it cause by image processing??

Have a nice day.

[MCYM]

Hi Weixing

Unless intentionally introduced by author, which is very unlikely. That hole spells DIRT. A very common features found in expose DSLRs and CCD.

Matthew

[kochu]

Hi Weixing,

You are very observant and got real sharp eyes. I failed to notice the hole till you pointed it out. I will check up the other shots and corrector lense tonight. As Matthew correctly mentioned it has to be some dirt.
Mostly I do imaging from a make shift mouning base fitted on the balcony railing. Unfortunately my neighbours on top floors use their balcony for more practical purposes like drying cloths and keeping plotted plants.
This comet is quite high by 10 pm. So it is quite possible that some water droplets has fallen .

Since I used LX90 it is more apt to say that the image was captured at Cassegrain focus. I just did some elementary processing like noise filtering and contrast adjutment.

Comet is visible through finder as a white blob, if you carefully look. Though officially brightness of Machholz is 4.7 Mag yesterday , in our skies it may just make a binocular object. As per Jan S&T Magazine, the comet is expected to grow in brightness to 4.1 Mag by first week Jan.

Kochu/22-12-04

[Airconvent]

ha ha...I was wondering what wiexong was talking about until I increased the brightness way beyond acceptable before I saw it...man, you all must have set your screen brightness way too high to spot these.
Anyway, how can the spot be dirt? I thought at ep focus they will likely be out of focus?

rich