One night - five comets

Chasing the middle ground comets (from almost naked eye visibility down to twelve mag or so) is interesting and fun. The bunch here are all around 11 mag and one of them is so diffuse that all we see is a faint trace of the comet. Quite a diversity in this small sample.

I use the Skyhound comet website for an overview and pin down the comets in the SkyTools software. Need to know where to aim the telescope...

Takahashi 106/530-5 astrograph, ZWO 2600 color camera and 8x30sec exposures.

Just want to pin them down so no wallhanger images here! :-D

Here we go:

I've long admired the output from your Tak 106/530 F5 Astrograph. Also, kudos to your choice of the ASI2600 camera. Definitely a winning combination.

In your posts, I don't recall your mentioning what mount you're using. Your imaging rig is pushing ~10Kg so I'm expecting a GEM, guided or unguided?

Thanks in advance,

Jim

little jim said:

I've long admired the output from your Tak 106/530 F5 Astrograph. Also, kudos to your choice of the ASI2600 camera. Definitely a winning combination.

In your posts, I don't recall your mentioning what mount you're using. Your imaging rig is pushing ~10Kg so I'm expecting a GEM, guided or unguided?

Thanks in advance,

Jim

Click to expand...

Thank you for nice comments.

My mount is a Vixen SXP mount. Got one of the first ones sold, pricing was a bit off so I tought it was good value and ordered one. It was.

Some might find the mount a bit pricey but it is a lovely mount that murrs like a cat all night long. Never let me down.

My typical setup is multiple 30 sec exposures. Unguided.

Could obviously go longer but see no added benefit (have tested extensively). Reach the sky fog limit anyway within those 30 seconds.

Have some light pollution so 30 sec subs is the sweet spot at my location (would use longer subs if residing in a darker area). Longer exposures do NOT add anything but more blur by atmospheric turbulence (CMOS, microlenses and very low readout noise have changed the playground so old CCD methods are no longer needed).