Comet Panstarrs (2)
Much better opportunity to photograph the comet after last night's practice round. This time I had the GPS unit that rotates the camera's sensor such that it follows the subject at the same angular velocity as the earth's rotation. This allowed a much longer exposure of 30 seconds at base ISO. The comet is still spewing vast amounts of dust from its nucleus even though it is now exiting the asteroid belt on its way toward Mars. The star to the left of the comet is visual magnitude 8.0 so it is still much brighter than that. The faintest stars in this frame are about visual magnitude 12. The comet was low enough in the sky to be buried in the skyglow over Prince George. As well, there was thin high cloud drifting over from the northwest. I had to adjust the black point and kill the awful purple shade of the skyglow to get this image even half decent. As the comet continues on its trajectory, it will be moving into darker skies so even though it will continue to fade, there should be better opportunites to have it set against much blacker skies. March 23, 2013.
Comet Panstarrs (2)
Much better opportunity to photograph the comet after last night's practice round. This time I had the GPS unit that rotates the camera's sensor such that it follows the subject at the same angular velocity as the earth's rotation. This allowed a much longer exposure of 30 seconds at base ISO. The comet is still spewing vast amounts of dust from its nucleus even though it is now exiting the asteroid belt on its way toward Mars. The star to the left of the comet is visual magnitude 8.0 so it is still much brighter than that. The faintest stars in this frame are about visual magnitude 12. The comet was low enough in the sky to be buried in the skyglow over Prince George. As well, there was thin high cloud drifting over from the northwest. I had to adjust the black point and kill the awful purple shade of the skyglow to get this image even half decent. As the comet continues on its trajectory, it will be moving into darker skies so even though it will continue to fade, there should be better opportunites to have it set against much blacker skies. March 23, 2013.