The Dutch Observatory

This was our scheduled meeting day. Did not make it to the meeting, but to the observing session after the meeting.  First at the Dove Fields where I stayed until the comet set in the west.  We must have had two dozen visitors that wanted to see the comet. Despite some small clouds at the horizon, they all left having seen the comet through binos and a small telescope and some of them I am sure made some great pictures of the comet.  Here two images (out of 48) one taken at 8:31 the second 18 minutes later at a focal length of 250mm. 

Another observing session from the Dove Fields at CE. We had 13 people on the field. Five visitors who were there also on Sunday at Lake Varner, and Kitty made a very nice closeup of the comet.  I tried to do too much by bringing my SVC80 and trying to capture the comet through Frank’s refractor.  Could not get the comet on the chip of the DMK or maybe bring it in focus, so I lacked the time to keep track of my Canon.  Therefore limiting today to only one image and waiting for another chance.

After a rainy evening on Monday, we went to Charlie Elliott’s Dove Fields.  This place has a 1.5 degree horizon and is an ideal place for watching the Comet.  We had 6 CE members showing up.  First we located the moon and from there it was a snap to find the comet.  Everyone saw it through binos and even through Marilyn Edwards Dob.  A great evening.  Here my image of tonight and an animation of the moon and the comet setting in the west. Click the image for the larger version and the animation.

I made around 60 images of the comet, however, only 8 or 9 turned out to be usable for a time lapse.  The rest did not show the comet, or it was blurred and would have distracted more than contribute.  Here a link to the timelapse in my gallery.

We have been hunting the comet C/2011 L4 for three days now.  I caught it on my camera two days ago, but did not have my remote with me resulting in the image being exposed to cross movement.  Tonight I had the remote with me and here one of the images I took tonight.

Comet 17P/Holmes

I guess I will start with some images which I made from Comet 17P/Holmes.  I spend considerable time imaging Holmes over a two month period.  First the comet itself, than when the coma extended my field of view, the comet in the evening sky against the constellations and other sky objects.

My first image of Comet 17P Holmes imaged the evening of October 25, 2008 from the Dutch Observatory

Image showing the increase of the size of the comet over a 7 day period

Holmes on the evening of 10/28 with identifying starfield. 
Thanks Clevis for your help with this!

This was Comet 17P/Holmes the evening of 10/31/2007 at 9:06 EST.  We had trouble identifying the location of Holmes because we could not find the double star to the right of Holmes in the catalogues.  Eventually with the help of Bill Gray from Project Pluto, the double was identifed as ES 465 (T.E. Espin’s list of double stars)  Most other catalogues listed the double as a single unresolved star.  Interesting to note that the two stars of the double were observed and measured 7 times between 1907 and 1971 and that in that period the stars moved 1.7 arc seconds away from each other.

The final image from Holms here, is an image taken on its 115th  discovery aniversary date,
November 6, 2007 2:20 UT