Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

Jeremy Perez

Jeremy Perez

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Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
The latest in the series of Lovejoy comets is putting on an impressive display. It’s just west of Orion right now, and tripod shots with even short exposures catch it pretty easily. This is a 10 second shot at 55 mm f/4.0 ISO3200. (images link to larger versions)



After that, I set my T3i up on an equatorial mount with rough polar alignment. The 55-250 mm lens zoomed all the way in start showing some structure in the ion tail with just 30 second exposures at f/5.6, ISO 3200. This is a stack of 10 exposures aligned to the comet, so there is trailing in the star field. I need a better grasp on applying flat frames, so the field is pretty uneven. But you can just make out an interesting disruption in the tail, close to the center of the frame.



It’s a nice sight through binoculars too, with a subtle turquoise color and from my location, about 2 degrees of the ion tail emerging from the large coma.

Anyway, thought I’d start this thread in case anyone else has or will be photographing it—
 
Very impressive!

Having just moved out into the country, I've had a great time watching meteor showers this year, geminids were spectacular this year, I'll have to get out the camera and telescope and track this sucker down. Been too overcast lately.
 
If the clouds break tonight like forecasted, I will try to grab a shot or two of it. Had clear skies the other night, but couldnt bring myself to get out in the cold, during the work week at least.
 
I tried my hand at shooting the comet. It was tough to find but I just swooped up and to the right of Rigel and found it. For now it just appeared as a greenish fuzzy dot. Maybe tomorrow (weather permitting) I'll get out of town early enough to see it before the moon rises. I'll have my hand at some stacking too. This is a single pic I took with my T2i using my Sigma 55-200mm zoomed all the way in. This is also my first real astronomy picture I've taken.

IMG_1314-XL.jpg
 
John I was out around midnight. The only problem is the moon made for a lot of light noise. It's probably best to get it just after twilight before the moon fully rises. Look for Orion's belt and Rigel. Should be to the right by about 20 degrees.
 
Marcus, nice catch—it looks like there may actually be a hint of the tail starting to show in the green channel pointing to about 11-o'clock. Away from the light pollution and frustrations of the Moon, it'll probably start holding its own.

When I went out and shot it last night, the tail did seem a lot fainter than the day before, but I think that's because it was more fanned out and with lots of streamers in it. It's pretty interesting that it's changing so much each day.

John, like Marcus said, it's in good position high in the southeast right after it gets dark after sundown. Also, you can have a look at Sky and Telescope's page—they do a nice job on their finder charts: How to See Comet Lovejoy Tonight.
 
I managed to catch it last night, but not great. Ill pull a couple photos and post soon.

But now I can check that one off my photographical want-to-do list.
 
This is from a set of three 3-minute exposures at ISO3200, f/5.6, 250 mm, tracked on an equatorial mount. I wanted to get a few more, but the Moon crested the horizon and started washing things out before I could. The comet's motion over each three minute exposure did smear and soften the tail, but some of the structure still came out. I processed the image so that only one set of stars showed this time.

 
This equatorial mount you speak of. I feel like it's very necessary for astronomy pics. I couldn't go more than 6 sec exposures before things began to streak and smear. I think the windy night is going to hurt me today. Might have to try tomorrow night when it's not so windy and a little warmer.
 
Marcus Diaz said:
This equatorial mount you speak of. I feel like it's very necessary for astronomy pics. I couldn't go more than 6 sec exposures before things began to streak and smear. I think the windy night is going to hurt me today. Might have to try tomorrow night when it's not so windy and a little warmer.
Click to expand...

From what ive been told they are a must. But ive also been told you if you have a telescope, you can piggy-back it with your lens and be ok. But im not 100% sure if that actually works or not, maybe Jeremy can chime in on that. I do know that equatorial mounts are pretty darn expensive.
 
Yeah, star trailing gets to be an issue with tighter zoom. I missed that you were shooting 200 mm on that first one. If you back the Sigma out all the way to 55 mm you might be able to triple your exposure time though. The tradeoff of smaller scale may be worth the added exposure.

There is this astrophotography guideline for tripod shots called the 500 rule. Divide 500 by your focal length and that's how long you can expose on a tripod before star trails become evident. If you can live with a little bit of trailing, you can fudge that more—but it gives an idea. If you don't mind a little bit of trailing like in the first 6-second shot, then you could go with a 1200 rule (1200/200 mm = 6 seconds). So at 55 mm: 1200/55 = 22 seconds. At 55 mm, you'd also be able to open it up to f/4 for more light.

If you decide to try stacking multiple images, that can help overcome short exposures by buying more signal to noise in the composite image. That does add to the time investment.

High magnification astrophotography is a huge processing pain & really time consuming (at least to me it is every time I try it). So I usually stick to wide field shots to improve enjoyment levels.
 
Thanks Jeremy for those tips. I'll give that a try. I was going to attempt stacking too but not sure if you can do that in Lightroom (I'm sure there is just haven't looked). One incentive to working at my job so long is a free gift from a catalog. One of them was a nice beginner's telescope. Didn't know if I could combine that with my camera to get some zoomed in pics of planets and possibly comets.
 
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