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Now at mag 8.5
            and rapidly growing brighter each day, this periodic comet will
            offer challenges to astroimagers because of its fast speed against
            the starry background. Here, we essentially guided on the comets
            nucleus, and let the stars streak on by, revealing some 52 minutes
            of movement. At this time visually, the comet was very low surface
            brightness, however it should become naked eye in a few months.

            
The comet was
            only 10 degrees from the pole star on this date, but will be
            rapidly moving southward from here on. I was surprised to see
            such coloration in this still distant visitor, however this may
            be a good sign of things to come!

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Mount:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling
Guider: DSI  w/Lumicon Newt Easy Guider
Exposure:  LRGB = 52:7:7:7 (RGB Binned 2x2)
AstroDon RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 1.05: 1.11
Location:  Payson, Arizona, Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 6 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  35 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Image Processing Tools: 
Maxim DL:  Calibration aligning, stacking
PixInsight:  Curves, Deconvolution, noise reduction
Photoshop CS2:  Curves, Color Correction, Gradient removal (Grad Xterminator), Cleanup

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