Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)

Comet NEOWISE has been giving much of the northern hemisphere quite a show these past few weeks. Based on the photos I've seen it looked to be bright and quite spectacular--maybe a couple of notches above the spectacle of C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS back in March 2013.

But, alas, I live in East Texas.

This time of year any day can be a combination of clear skies with burning sun and 100+ degree F temperatures, clouds, severe thunderstorms, high humidity, and dusty haze. In general, conditions are not often favorable in the summer for astronomy.

A friend of mine and I have been eagerly searching for NEOWISE this past week, but for various reasons we were unable to see it. The evening of July 18, 2020, however, he and I found a dark spot in my neighborhood with a clear view to the northwest. About half an hour after sunset and shortly after a pass of the International Space Station, we finally saw the comet through binoculars.

It was behind some clouds that were lit up from underneath by the lights of a few nearby prisons.  Several minutes later it was naked-eye visible as a faint smudge pointing up toward the Big Dipper. I took several images with my mobile phone and DSLR:

Samsung Galaxy S10+, 15 seconds at ISO-3200

The above image is a single photo taken with my phone. I'm amazed at what these little devices can do!

The two following images were taken with the Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D), stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, and have been processed in Photoshop to bring out the details and colors of the scene:

55mm lens, f/7.1, 8x10 seconds @ ISO-3200. The ion tail is faintly visible above the dust tail. Both tails extend, faintly, to the upper-right edge of the image.

55mm lens, f/7.1, 12x15 seconds @ ISO-3200

The first DSLR image is from earlier in the evening. The second was from the last series of shots that had decent data before the comet descended too far into the clouds and haze.

Weather permitting, I intend to try for a few more shots of the comet before it fades away. The latest forecast, though, has a tropical disturbance heading into the Gulf of Mexico, possibly for the Texas coast. So, there's that. Ah, Texas...

Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) - Up Close

I finally got a break in the weather on January 7 where I could go out and image C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy. Even in the 91% illumination of the waning Moon, the comet was still visible to the naked eye in the constellation Eridanus. While not as visually interesting as, say, C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS, I think it is the prettiest comet that I've imaged so far. Other amateur photographers have made some stunning images. Here is mine, made with my modest setup:

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy; ST80 on Vixen SP; Canon EOS Rebel T3; 43x30 @ ISO-1600

Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

Famed amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered long period comet C/2014 Q2 in August 2014. It became visible at my latitude in December 2014, but the weather conditions afforded no decent opportunity to view it until the night of December 30/31. There was a lot a moisture in the air and the Moon was very bright (at 75% illumination), but the comet was naked-eye visible. Clouds were on the way, so I opted to quickly set up a DSLR on a tripod to try to capture a few images.

Maybe it's my imagination, but I can barely make out the comet's tail trailing to the upper-left. The stars are streaked due to the Earth's rotation. This was compiled from 5 8-second exposures at ISO-3200 using a Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D) with a zoom lens at 55mm.

This is a wide-angle image that shows the comet's location on the night of December 30th. Click on the labels for the indicated objects to open pages that give details. Some of the links will open pages on other web sites.

Comet C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS)

Comets are in the news lately as C/2012 K1 PANSTARRS is now bright enough for viewing in small telescopes, and a new meteor shower is predicted for the night of May 23/24 as Earth passes through the debris trail of Comet 209P/LINEAR. I caught a break in the weather on May 18, 2014 before the Moon rose to capture a few images of C/2012 K1 PANSTARRS. This is not the same PANSTARRS comet that reached naked-eye visibility in 2013.

Comet C/2012 K1 PANSTARRS; ST80 on Vixen SP; Canon EOS Rebel T3; 8x120 @ ISO-1600

The bright star in the upper-right is Chi Ursae Majoris, located near the bowl of the Big Dipper. The edge-on spiral galaxy at top center is NGC 3877.

This image is a composite of two separate sets of images. I stacked one set of the original subs with the comet digitally removed to get a clear image of the background stars and galaxy. Then, I stacked the same subs centered on the comet to get a clearer image of it. Finally, the two images were combined in Photoshop CS6.

Also, I used a trial copy of BackyardEOS during this session. Normally, I would use the Canon EOS Utilities that came with my camera to control it from the computer, but my laptop recently suffered a hard drive failure and I haven't been able to locate the install disk. I've heard and read about BackyardEOS for some time, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. So far, I'm very impressed. It has a lot of great features and is, of course, custom-made for astronomical imaging. Maybe this will be my Father's Day present. :)

Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)

Lately, comet ISON has been getting a lot of attention in the press and among astronomers, but at present it is difficult to see because it is close to the horizon just before dawn. Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy), however, is considerably higher up in the early morning sky at my latitude.  It reached naked eye visibility in early November.

Comets are named using a convention that indicates the type of comet, and the year, half-month and order in which it was discovered. The discoverer's name is often included, and is sometimes used as the familiar name for the comet. This comet was discovered in September 2013 by famous amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy. It is a long-period comet, with an estimated orbital period of over 10,000 years.

I made these images early in the morning on November 13. The first is a stack made in RegiStax 5 of 16 two-minute exposures centered on the comet core. The comet was moving rather quickly, so over time it moved a significant distance within my camera's field of view. As a result, aligning the images on the comet core caused the stars to trail.

Comet C2013 R1 (Lovejoy); ST80 on Vixen SP; EOS Rebel T3; 16x120 at ISO-1600

The second image is a combined stack of four images using the comet stacking settings in Deep Sky Stacker. The program attempts to stack the comet and stars separately, then combine them.

It did a fair job of producing the image, but it washed out the color of the comet and left "holes" in the brighter stars. After a bit of work I got most of the color back and fixed the stars.

Although it does not have the detail of the first image, it looks better than a single frame.

4x120 at ISO-1600, stacked in DSS using the "Comet and stars" stacking mode.

PANSTARRS Parting Shots

Comet PANSTARRS is getting harder to see from my location. Tonight's images are probably the last that I will take. I missed the opportunity last night to get a shot of the comet with the Moon, so I tried to make up for that tonight:

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); 80mm focal length at f/5.6; 2.5 seconds at ISO-1600
Click here for the full-size image

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); 300mm focal length at f/5.6; 2.5 seconds at ISO-800
Click here for the full-size image

Close-up of the crescent Moon, with the dark side lit up by Earthshine.

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); 300mm focal length at f/5.6; 2 seconds at ISO-400

PANSTARRS and Moonset

My wife and I went up to the roof the Sam Houston State University parking garage to see the comet and take some pictures. A small crowd gathered around the telescope. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Below are some of the pics from tonight.

The star below and to the right of the comet is the planet Uranus:

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); ST80 on Vixen SP; 4 seconds at ISO-400
Click here for the full-size image

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); ST80 on Vixen SP; 5 seconds at ISO-1600
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Setting Moon over Huntsville, TX; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); ST80 on Vixen SP; 2.5 seconds at ISO-1600
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Here is a movie of the crescent Moon setting over Huntsville:

Moonset over Huntsville, March 13, 2013

PANSTARRS Movies!

Here are a couple of movies I put together from tonight's images.

The first is composed of 1-second exposures at ISO-400. The tripod wasn't very steady, so there is some bouncing around because of the wind.

PANSTARRS Movie #1

The second move is composed of a few 4-second exposures at ISO-1600:

PANSTARRS Movie #2

Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)

Comet PANSTARRS is visible in the northern hemisphere! Naked-eye comets don't come along every day.  The last one I saw was Comet Holmes in 2007. Prior to that, the only other naked-eye comet I had seen was Hale-Bopp. I've seen a couple through telescopes, but that doesn't count. :o)

Here are a couple of images of PANSTARRS that I took from my yard this evening:

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); 300mm focal length at f/5.6; 1 second at ISO-400
Click here for the full-size image

Comet PANSTARRS; Canon Rebel T3 (1100D); 300mm focal length at f/5.6; 4 seconds at ISO-1600
Click here for the full-size image

Comet Hartley - The Movie!

I took the individual images that I shot of Comet 103P/Hartley and compiled them into a movie.  It shows the progress of the comet over about a 70 minute period.  The file is in MP4 format, and is located here:

http://www.theglasgowfamily.org/blog/movies/Comet_103P-Hartley.mp4

Look for the satellite that passes through the Double Cluster!

Comet 103P/Hartley

Comet 103P/Hartley is promising to be the brightest comet of 2010. It won't be a fill-the-sky-feast-for-the-eyes comet, though. Not every comet can be a Hale-Bopp or a McNaught. In fact, it will be barely visible to the naked eye under dark skies. Right now, it can best be viewed in telescopes, and even so it is just a fuzzy green dot. But when it comes to comets, we take what we can get!

Comet 103P/Hartley is a periodic comet that orbits the Sun once about every 6.5 years. It was discovered in 1986 by astronomer Malcolm Hartley. Its closest approach to Earth, at about 11 million miles, will occur on October 20, 2010. It should reach magnitude 5, which is pretty dim, but not impossible to see in dark skies.

On October 8 and 9, 103P/Hartley passed near the Double Cluster in the constellation Perseus. I compiled this image from several individual images taken on October 8. The comet is the green patch in the upper-right. The nucleus of the comet is the bright green streak. The streak indicates how far the comet traveled during a 24-minute period.

Comet 103P/Hartley passing in front of the Double Cluster in Perseus.