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C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS with Short Jet or Antitail on October 12 2024

Astrophotography CMOS Comet Imaging
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#1 james7ca

james7ca

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Posted 13 October 2024 - 02:59 AM

This was captured from a fixed (non-tracking) tripod using a Nikon Z8 and a NIKKOR Z 180-600mm zoom lens at its 460mm setting. Unfortunately, I have a row of houses and street lights on my western horizon and this image was taken when the comet was less than one degree above my neighbor's roof.

 

The base exposure was only 1/6s but I stacked 36 frames that were taken in rapid sequence to produce this image. The brightest star (HR 5368) in this field is magnitude 6.2 and the faintest is around 9.5. The comet's tail extends about 1.5 degrees before it runs out of the top of the frame. There is also a very short jet or perhaps antitail that extends toward the upper right within the comet's nucleus.

 

 Image processing with PixInsight (calibration and integration), Siril (registration), and Photoshop 2024. The capture details are in the captions and you can click on the preview to view the full size of this CN-hosted image (at 1600 x 1200 pixels).

 

If the skies are clear on Sunday night I plan on moving to a location where I can image the comet with a shorter lens (at my location on Saturday anything wider than shown below would have included brightly lit houses and street lights). Before I took this image I was able to find the comet with a pair of 10x30 Canon IS binoculars, certainly as early as 7PM PDT (shortly after civil dusk, but well before nautical dusk).

Attached Thumbnails

  • Comet C:2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.jpg

Edited by james7ca, 13 October 2024 - 04:06 PM.

  • Mirzam, R Botero, aquarius43 and 4 others like this

#2 james7ca

james7ca

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Posted 13 October 2024 - 03:29 AM

Here is a full-scale crop of the comet's nucleus showing what may be a jet or foreshortened antitail. Same capture details as before.

Attached Thumbnails

  • Comet C:2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Detail.jpg

  • Mirzam, Jaylab, roelb and 3 others like this


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Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: Astrophotography, CMOS, Comet, Imaging



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