Comet 17P/Holmes
Visual View through Scope
Enhance View to Show Core Region
Description:
Comet
17P/Holmes was discovered more than 100 years ago and since then it has
made 16 orbits around the Sun.
This comet shocked astronomers on Oct. 24th, 2007 with a spectacular
eruption. In less than 24 hours, the 17th mag. comet brightened
by a factor of nearly a million becoming a naked-eye object in the
evening sky. It is located in the constellation Perseus.
After
capturing and processing my original image, I decided to stretch
and enhance the image to see if I could see any detail in the core
region. Wow!!! Was I surprised!!! A lot going on inside this
thing!!!!!
This
is an amazing object that hopefully will be visible for a while,
although nobody really knows how long. Hopefully, I will be able
to capture more of the inner workings of this magnificent object.
Photographic Details:
Date & Location: October 29th
2007, Santa Fe, Texas.
Scope: Obsession 20” f/5 on a
Tom Osypowski Dual Axis Equatorial Platform, Orion 100mm f/6 Guidescope.
Autoguider: SC1 Mod Celestron
Neximage Cam, Shoestring GPUSB guide port
interface adapter, and Guidemaster software.
Camera: Canon 20D DSLR (non-modded), homemade serial control shutter release
cable, and DSLR Shutter from Stark Labs.
Filters: IDAS LPR Filter
Conditions: Temp 55F, Humidity 88%, Winds Calm, Transparency 6/10, Seeing 7/10.
Exposures: 30 x 10sec @ 1600 ISO Sub Frames, 9 x 10sec Darks.
Post-processing: 3504x2336 Raw files converted to Lossless 16-bit FITS, calibrated, aligned, and combined with ImagePlus. Levels and color balancing Registax 4. Final processing PhotoImpact Pro.
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