So the other night I decided I would try to image a comet, since I haven't done that before. I have to say it was a lot of fun, and I've learned a fair bit about it. I was hoping to have the tail show up, but I had no luck. I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect it has something to do with either too short of an exposure or the atmospheric transparency—or both... or maybe my location just wasn't dark enough... who knows?
I will say that I am glad I was able to get M79 in the same image, which was a real treat. It was really cool to watch the comet's motion over time... which if you're interested I compiled a
video of the comet's motion... In retrospect, I probably should have flat, dark and bias subtracted the individual frames of that video.
Processing the image was quite a challenge. I eventually moved to processing it in CCDStack, after having issues with DSS. This is also my first time using CCDStack, so I still have a lot to learn about that too... but from what I can tell so far I really do like the software.
Anyway, I plan on retrying this from a darker location on January 7th, when the comet reaches its closest point to Earth—although that will largely depend on if the weather is good. It's been unusually cloudy the past month or so.
Edit: I reprocessed the full stack of 145 frames (originally 27) using PixInsight, and I was able to reveal detail in the tail of the comet.
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