Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks - 28 March 2024
I imaged the comet again, but I think nothing was gained over the last photo from 10 March. It wasn’t helped by the drifting high cloud and numerous satellite trails, traces of all of which can be seen in the final result, despite being averaged over 13 frames. 2 tails are visible, however - the ion tail towards the 1 o’clock position, and the fainter dust tail towards 2 o’clock.
13 x 30-sec exposures at f/4.5 and ISO 3200 with an EOS 600D and Zeiss Jena 135mm f/3.5 lens on a Vixen Polarie star tracker. The frames were stacked on the comet in DeepSkyStacker, with curves adjustment and further noise reduction in post-processing. Also Starnet++ software was used to temporarily separate the stars and comet and prevent the stars bloating when comet contrast is stretched; this has revealed more of the tail that would otherwise be lost in the star background.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks - 28 March 2024
I imaged the comet again, but I think nothing was gained over the last photo from 10 March. It wasn’t helped by the drifting high cloud and numerous satellite trails, traces of all of which can be seen in the final result, despite being averaged over 13 frames. 2 tails are visible, however - the ion tail towards the 1 o’clock position, and the fainter dust tail towards 2 o’clock.
13 x 30-sec exposures at f/4.5 and ISO 3200 with an EOS 600D and Zeiss Jena 135mm f/3.5 lens on a Vixen Polarie star tracker. The frames were stacked on the comet in DeepSkyStacker, with curves adjustment and further noise reduction in post-processing. Also Starnet++ software was used to temporarily separate the stars and comet and prevent the stars bloating when comet contrast is stretched; this has revealed more of the tail that would otherwise be lost in the star background.