Comet 103P Hartley 2 at the VCO
It was a good night with hopes of viewing Jupiter and more glimpses of the comet. Malcom on the deck of the observatory had already spotted the comet by the time I arrived. After getting the coordinates right we could see the diffused comet in the Meade 14 inch. Centering was a bit of a challenge but I thank Jim Cliffe for steering the Paramount to position my target. I took a number of frames with the Meade but I waited until the NP127is could see the target to get my final frames. In spite of the moonlight and some haziness I managed to capture enough frames to get an even better view than previous nights.
Camera: Nikon D700
Telescope: NP127is fl=660mm f/5.2
Filter: IDAS LPS
Sensor ISO: 3200
Exposure: 22 light frames for 30 seconds at f/5.2
Processing: Stacking with Maxim DL 5 Pro using auto one star alignment, sigma clip combine. Final tuning with Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended and Noel Carboni Astronomy Tools 1.6 Actions. Final image is cropped from full frame.