Comet Ikeya-Zhang

May 3rd, 2002

Uploaded 5/05/02

Although fading to 4.5 magnitude, the comet is rises early in the evening just under the head of Draco in the East. A two degree long ray type tail was seen in binoculars which shows faintly to the lower right in this image, the comet was offset in this shot to accomidate any possible tail detail. Note the leading edge jet in the coma, indications of much internal action. The deep green of Cyanogen is starting to fade out, but is still the dominant color here.

Processing: Image taken in RGB, and combined for color data. A synthetic Luminosity frame was created by adding R+G+B creating a much lower noise L channel. Richard Lucy deconvolution and DDP was applied to the L channel, and combined with the RGB data for this LRGB image.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  LRGB = 15m:5m:5m:5m
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FMHW = 2.5 arcsec, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  10 C
CCD Temperature:  -25 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, AIP4WIN

 

 

 
 


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