I have a bunch of wide field comet images from Dell City, Texas and Pearland, Texas that are proving … challenging … to process, given that they were taken near dusk with a DSLR on a tripod.  Everything is changing – the Earth is rotating (so the stars are moving relative to the camera on a non-tracking tripod), the comet is moving relative to the stars, and the sky brightness is changing.  

But now Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas is getting higher in the night sky, so it is no longer visible only at dusk.  So I could set up my tracking mount and telescope to image it.  The tail is still really long – much longer than I can capture in the field of view of my telescope!

Even with a tracking mount and dark sky, processing a comet moving relative to the stars is still really challenging, and I really benefited from following the “Standard Comet” example in Adam Block’s Comet Academy.

Camera geek info:

• Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
• Williams Optics Flat 73A
• ZWO 2” Electronic Filter Wheel
• Antila RGB filters
• ZWO ASI183MM-Pro-Mono camera
• ZWO ASiair Plus
• iOptron CEM40
• Friendswood, Texas Bortle 7-8 dark skies

Frames:

• October 24, 2024
  • Interleaved LRGB lights
    • 11 60 second Gain 150 R lights
• • • 10 60 second Gain 150 G lights
• • • 10 60 second Gain 150 B lights
• • 30 0.05 second R flats
• • 30 0.02 second B and G flats
• • 30 0.05 second darks
• • 30 0.02 second darks
  • 30 60 second darks

Processing geek info:

• PixInsight
• BlurXterminator
• NoiseXterminator
• StarXTerminator
• ImageBlend