Comet 46P/Wirtanen Visible to Naked Eye Dec 16

[jim mcnamara]

On Dec 16 it will be the closest to Earth in its orbit, should be visible to the naked eye.
https://ksby.com/news/2018/12/09/brightest-comet-of-2018-to-pass-the-closest-to-earth-in-december

 

[davenn]

On Dec 16 it will be the closest to Earth in its orbit, should be visible to the naked eye.
https://ksby.com/news/2018/12/09/brightest-comet-of-2018-to-pass-the-closest-to-earth-in-december

Hi Jim ... several days ago I posted in the "our beautiful Universe thread, photo and star maps for the comet

Went out last nite, 7th Dec, for the first serious observing/imaging session for a long time.

Was very disappointed, when I got to site after a long drive, that I discovered that I had grabbed the wrong scope mount drive controller.
The controllers are the same except one has a 8 pin RJ connector and the other has a 6 pin RJ connector
The scope mount I took has the 6 pin and the controller I took has the 8 pin

As a result I had no tracking ability for my imaging
I had to keep exposures short but at the focal lengths being used, there is still some trailing.

Did some serious pushing of ISO settings to compensate a bit for the short exposures

Comet 46P/Wirtanen ... a comet with a large coma ( gas/dust halo) the size of a full moon, but the overall surface brightness is
reasonably low
10sec @ f2.8, ISO 6400, 200mm focal length ( 70 - 200mm zoom) on a Canon 6D

View attachment 235378Large Magellanic Cloud

5sec @ f2.8, ISO 25600, 200mm focal length ( 70 - 200mm zoom) on a Canon 6D

View attachment 235379
cheers
Dave

you may have missed itcheers
Dave

 

[jim mcnamara]

Clearly I did miss it. Thanks for the update.