Last Shot of Comet Lovejoy ? 
December 6, 2013

 Rapidly sinking into the Eastern morning twilight, this comet was about the lowest I can truly go from the back yard observatory here in Payson. At 5:30am, which is less than half an hour before morning twilight this time of year, I could only get half the telescopes aperture over the wall of the observatory. Sheets of ice were forming on everything, and it was 16F outside, the first clear morning in weeks after a mountain of rain and snow had fallen. Sheets of ice were forming very rapidly on the entire telescope and CCD cameras, and even the underside of the metal roof was frozen solid.

Here is a short color exposure, from many that were simply unusable from the seeing conditions that low on the horizon. The comets head is the round green area in the lower part of this frame, while the long dust tail flows off the top of the frame.

Select an image size for a larger view: 1024 x 768
Lens: 12.5" f/5 Home bult Newtonian Platform: Astrophysics AP1200 Exposure: 3m RGB Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 2/10, Transparency 2/10 Outside Temperature: 16F Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2 HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS