Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

This was kind of tricky to process. I tried using DSS to align on the comet+stars but the image came out real sloppy, with the color looking like it was smudged off of the comet. What ended up working was stacking this twice in DSS, first aligning on the comet, then ignoring the comet and stacking normally. The comet stack had a sharp comet, and the star stack had sharp stars but a messy comet. I then used pixel math in Pixinsight, using the expression max(stars,comet) to combine the maximum values in both images. This method worked much better than DSS alone.

 

 

65 x 60 seconds, ISO 800

40 darks

 

Equipment: Canon t2i, Orion f/3.9 Newt (800mm), Orion Atlas EQ-G

 

Acquisition: Backyard EOS, EQMOD, Cartes du Ciel, PHD

 

Processed using DeepSkyStacker and Pixinsight

Done