2013 has become a great year for comets!
When I decided to rest my telescope for a few months, to concentrate on astro-imaging off a tripod, my plan was to obtain wide angle images, because that is one of the strengths of using a camera and tripod. However, we've had a lot of clouds, which can sometimes enhance wide field photography but will usually destroy it. The wider the field of view, the more likely it becomes that clouds will interfere. So the strength becomes a weakness!
I did not expect to be imaging comets. However, there have already been three interesting comets this year and I tried my luck with them all, using my fixed 135mm lens and 70-200 mm zoom lens.
Two nights ago (6th March 2013), C2011 L4 (Panstarrs) was computed to be magnitude 2.5 (comparable to Jupiter); located 1.1 astronomical units from Earth; and 0.32 astronomical units (and only 17 degrees) from the Sun.
That evening I was fortunate to catch Panstarrs very low in the SW, closely following the Sun and appearing to move quickly. This comet was very low in the SW, only eight degrees above the true horizon, when I took this image - and it disappeared one minute later.
Part of the tail - pointing away from the Sun - is visible, despite the light background, which was too bright to take long exposures to bring out the tail.
Canon EOS 60D; 200mm lens; 1/10 sec; f/2.8; ISO 2000. Tripod mount. Click to enlarge.
Last month it was C2012 F6 (Lemmon) which caught everyone's attention. It is still visible but I took this image on 8th February 2013:
47x10sec, 135mm, f2, ISO 3200. Total 7 min 50 sec exposure. Polarie mount. Click to enlarge.
This is what a similar image of C2012 F6 (Lemmon) looks like in reversed black and white, to bring out the tail:
33x9sec 135mm f/2 ISO 3200. Polarie mount. Click to enlarge.
Earlier, on 5th January 2013, I imaged the much fainter Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear), which was in Taurus, visible long after sunset in the clear dark skies of The Oaks, NSW. Linear appears on the right hand edge of this image:
60 sec, 135mm, f/4, ISO 800. Polarie mount. Click to enlarge.
These were my first comet imaging attempts since I rather amateurishly captured Comet Halley in 1986! Now I am really looking foward to Comet C2012 S1 (ISON) later this year! Perihelion will be 28th November 2013 at a distance of 0.012 AU from the Sun.