Saturday, October 02, 2010

Comet Hartley 2

Great night tonight, got a few hours of imaging in. While my main target was M31, I decided to try and shoot this small comet currently in Cassiopeia. It's a small period comet, orbiting every 6.5 years or so, and was discovered by an Aussie astronomer in 1986. Current magnitude is 7.5. This shot is the result of six three-minute captures in my 80mm refractor, guided on my CGEM through a 66mm refractor.

Wide Field:

















Close-Up:


6 comments:

Roberto said...

Hi! It's the first time i write in your blog but i was following it for months. I like it so much. Congratulations for your work. Nice shot, i like it so much. This week i'm gonna try to take a photo of it.

sorry for any gramatical errors. I'm from Spain.

bye
Rober

MichaelH said...

Did you know that your rss feed no longer includes the text or pictures from your posts?
I've followed your blog for the last year but can't anymore because most of my reading happens when disconnected from the net.

Phil said...

Roberto - Hello thanks thanks for visiting! I'll check out your blog soon and will add you to my blog roll. Spain is on my list of places to see for sure. Good luck hunting the comet down, it's a bit hard to find but I cheated with my GOTO mount! hehe. Cheers!

MichaelH - Hi. Sorry, I had no idea that was going on. I just went into my dashboard and changed an RSS feed setting which should have resolved the issue. Let me know and sorry again. Cheers!

MichaelH said...

Full feeds are coming through again!

Phil said...

Good show! Thanks for letting me know.

Anonymous said...

Great shot of Hartley 2 there. I'm heading out on Friday night this week to try and capture it, it's got a beautiful halo.

Really some very excellent photos you've taken Phil, I have some reading of your blog to-do :D

Clear skies,
Tim