Home / NEWS

My Equipment

Picture Gallery
Latest Images
Planets

Deep Sky

Deep Sea

Moon

Sun

Solar Eclipses

Guest Images

Skywatch

Others
Links
Tests - Tips
header2
 

Skywatch 2004-05-11 and 05-14
Comet Q4 NEAT

Skywatch of Comet Q4 Neat on May 11th  "Bucklige Welt" Austria

On May 11th afternoon the weather and the weatherforecast were not excellent. But  Peter Morth and Manfred Schwarz called in for a try to test our luck again and go for the comet Neat. Location planned to go was the Observatory of Manfred Schwarz in Eastern Austria (Bucklige Welt). During our drive in the highlands of the so called "bumpy world"  the sky improved and at our arrival we had a perfect clear southern and western horizon. We used Venus to align our mounts into the northern direction. This was not so easy but a beautiful sundown and the now perfect sky kept our good mood. Finding comet Neat in the dawn was very difficult. And as expected Manfred Schwarz in the observatory with the permanent mounted telescope  was the first one to cry "i hob eam" - thats typical Austrian language and means "Gotcha"! Soon after that we were able to see the tiny patch of Neat in the bino. This helped Peter and me to get also finally the comet into our guiding eyepieces. So, our photosessions could start. All 3 of us are using a Canon 10D DSLR camera but with different lenses from 300 to 500mm focal lenght. We were really lucky with the weather as it stayed perfect for the time Neat was above horizon. When Neat started to set, clouds drove in, the sky was covered fast and we had a reason to get home early!
See below a first image of Comet Neat, it was shot with the Canon 10D with my 300mm Sigma Apo lens mounted on a EQ-5 mount together with an ETX90 guidescope.
28 images with 1 minutes exposure each at 3200 ASA were stacked with ImagePlus 1.72. Flatfield subtraction and darkfield subtraction was done with ImagePlus also. Thanks to Manfred Schwarz who borrowed me his flatfield device to make artificial flatfield images for the 10D. This eliminates vignetting nearly complete. 

Comet Q4 NEAT with Canon 10D and a Sigma APO 300mm focal length lens on an EQ5 mount (guided with an ETX90)
picture
Comet Q4 Neat
stacked image
28x1 minute
 picture
 Comet Q4 Neat
single image
1x1 minute,		 picture
 My field setup.
Just running drift align on the Sun.
(image by Peter Morth)

The observatory place of Manfred Schwarz in the " Bucklige Welt" Austria and our instruments ready for the Comet on May 11th 2004
picture
Sundown we are
ready for the Comet		 picture
 Cometgun
waits for the Comet		 picture
 Peter Morth
ready for Q4 Neat

Skywatch of Comet Q4 Neat with M44 on May 14th 2004  in the "Bucklige Welt"
This day our friends Gerhard Eber, Franz Gruber and Manfred Fischer joined us to image comet Neat together with Open Cluster M44. The weather this day was good at the beginning but later on some thin clouds and fog disturbed the view. We were running an interesting test also, as 5 of us are using the Canon 10D for astroimaging, except Gerhard Eber, he  uses a brandnew Nikon D70. Will be interesting to see the comparisons. Hope i can get an image from Gerhard to show the comparison here.
  picture
Comet together
  with M44
guided on stars
7x90 Seconds		 picture
 Comet together
with M44
guided on comet
7x90 Seconds		 picture
 Comet only
guided on comet
12x90 Second
1600ASA, F4
  picture
Comet only
  guided on stars
12x90 Seconds
1600 ASA, F4		 picture
Combination of Comet guided and Star guided image
with Photoshop 		 

Find here a link to Comet Q4 Neat images from May 14th made by 
Manfred Schwarz:  Q4 with 400mm focal length
Find here an Comet Q4 Neat image from May 14th made by
Peter Morth:
  picture
Comet Q4 Neat
Televue Genesis refractor 500mm flength on Losmandy G11, Single Image 94 Seconds, ASA 400		  

LAST Skywatch of Comet Q4 Neat on May 19th 2004  in the 
"Bucklige Welt"
This day i was alone at the observatory place of Manfred, as all other comet hunters from the last days could not join because of last minute problems. The weather this day was very good the whole night. But Neat was already much weaker than on Mai 14th. So i increases the exposure times for the single image from 90 seconds to 240 seconds at 1600 ASA. The long tail could still be captured but as mentioned a little weaker. Find below an example of Comet NEAT during this night.
  picture
Comet Q4 Neat 22x240 Seconds stacked with Image Plus together