October 30 , 2007, 8:30pm PDT
Observatory Hill, Victoria, BC, Canada

As compared with my two previous images, the gas cloud surrounding the comet has grown in size once again. There is also a quite distinct green glow around the comet, which will likely turn into an ion tail soon. The right side of the cometary disk appears much more ragged than the left side, indicating a dust tail might be forming.

Using my unmodified Canon 30D mounted prime focus on my Meade LX200R operating at f/10, I acquired 61 images and stacked them to produce this resultant image. Due to the larger size of the comet and lower overall surface brightness, I increased my exposure time to 20 seconds for these images. Please note: the image size is almost twice as large as used for my previous two images due to the increase in the comet's overall size, therefore size comparisons cannot be made using the images as posted.

Details:
Telescope: Meade LX200R 8" operating at f/10 mounted Alt/Az
Canon 30D mounted at prime focus
Exposures: 61 images at 20 sec
ISO 800, Daylight white balance
Processing:
ImagesPlus 3 beta 10: digital development of Canon Raw to FITS, flat frame applied. Averaging used for stacking the images, then aggressive Digital Development applied to the resultant image, and conversion of this image to 48 bit TIFF for further processing.
ACDSee Pro 2: convert to 24 bit RGB, final contrast stretch, image crop, and conversion to jpg.