Long exposure of Neowise
Jul 25, 2020 01:35:21 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Last night I took ~70 1 minute exposures of Neowise to see how much of the comet tail I could get in the image. The exposures used an ISO of 800 and where taken at a focal length of 135mm and the f stop set to 2.8. As with my previous comet shots I stacked the image of the comet and the stars separately then recombined them to prevent trailing in either the stars or the comet. Note: The dim ion tail stretches beyond the edge of the frame even at 135mm. The comet has been getting dimmer each night as it moves further away from the sun. Also visible in this image is a planetary nebula on the right side and just below the center of the frame (a small turquoise disc, NGC 3587) and several spiral galaxies including M108 below and a little more to the right of the planetary nebula. Tomorrow I'll take time and circle and label some the galaxies in the image and update the post. All questions, comments and suggestions are welcome.
Jul 25, 2020 02:41:41 #
Jul 25, 2020 03:57:31 #
Jul 25, 2020 11:05:19 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
dat2ra wrote:
Nice pic. What do you suppose that blue streak is?
Hi dat2ra
The blue streak is the ion tail off the comet. The comet has 2 tails, dust that is reflect light and driven by the solar wind and the ion tail which is gas that has been ionized by the UV light from the sun. The ion which mainly consists of CO+ which scatters blue light better than red which is why it appears blue it also glows from the ionization more like a neon light. Unlike the dust tail the ion tail is effected by the magnetic field in the solar wind and gets bent in a slightly different direction.
Jul 25, 2020 11:06:27 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Delderby wrote:
Super space picture 
Hi Delderby
Thanks for checking out the picture and the comment.
Jul 25, 2020 13:10:02 #
Jul 25, 2020 13:12:22 #
Jul 26, 2020 01:11:01 #
Jul 26, 2020 01:51:14 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
UTMike wrote:
Excellent work, thanks for sharing!
Hi UTMike
Thanks for checking out the comet photo.
Jul 26, 2020 01:51:44 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
angler wrote:
Excellent shot.
Hi angler
Thanks for checking out the photo.
Jul 26, 2020 01:52:46 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
dat2ra wrote:
Great explanation. Thanks.
Hi dat2ra
You are very welcome, I enjoy sharing what I have learned.
Jul 26, 2020 05:47:43 #
It's possibly the best I've seen of the comet in the void. But did you really mean 70x 1 minute exposures?
Jul 26, 2020 07:08:40 #
Jul 26, 2020 08:16:44 #
PaulBrit
Loc: Merlin, Southern Oregon
That’s a wonderful photograph and I can’t wait for the labels to be applied. It was such a shame that high ground to the North of us prevented us from viewing it.
Jul 26, 2020 08:51:51 #
Ballard wrote:
Last night I took ~70 1 minute exposures of Neowis... (show quote)
Really good in download. The ION tail really stands out. I'm suspecting that's the Owl considering the comets location.
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