August 2009: Comets allery

Jean-Luc Dighaye

Images of comet Lulin from Munich, taken under very poor weather conditions, mostly through clouds. Curiously, autoguiding with the ST4 on a bright nearby star (gamma Virginis) worked even through the clouds.

Maksutov 150/900mm, Canon D20a, single shots with 60sek exposure, ISO 800.

19.2.09, 1:30 MEZ:

20.2.09, 2:20 MEZ (through even more clouds):

Comet Lulin, taken through thin clouds on 26.02.2009 at about 00:25 UTC.
Apochromat 200/1600, defiltered Canon EOS 5D, 16x 15s, ISO 800, cropped to FOV = 40'.

Comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) & NCG 7331 galaxy. LAC, 01.06.09 at 01:08 UTC, good sky transparency, beginning of twilight.
520/2.7 astrograph, Canon EOS 1Ds MkII, 10x 88s at ISO 800, Nd filter. Cropped to FOV = 2.5°. North is left.

On 19 August, comet Christensen was close to NGC 6886, a very small planetary nebula, hard to distinguish visually from the field stars, but recognisable as a definitely blue dot. Here an image taken at 21:49 UTC (North is up) and scale (50' FOV). The nebula is marked "N".

Christensen came close (separation 4°) to M27 the Dumbbell Nebula, see this image taken on 19 August at 23:14, with a total FOV of 5°.

On 22 August at 21:38, Christensen was less than 3° from M71 globular cluster. The comet looks larger since the image was cropped to 3° FOV, but actually it is getting fainter since it is receding from both the Earth and the Sun.