Great picture Rob! What lens did you use? I drove out to Ivins last night about 8:30 and got a wonderful view through my 15 X 70 binos. I wish I would have had time to shoot through both my film and digital cameras but the temperature was reading 31 degrees. That's cold for St. George. The comet did look green and I saw a hint of a tail. The comet was almost directly overhead way above the light pollution from St. George. I think I love the winter milky way more than the summer milky way. Now the clouds have rolled in again but that comet was very bright last night. Thanks for the heads-up Patrick! Debbie
From: Rob Ratkowski <ratkwski@hawaii.rr.com> Date: 2005/01/07 Fri AM 10:45:43 MST To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Comet & M-45
Thanks Jim,
But I have a long way to go. I'm using a pro-sumer camera not designed for exposures longer that 30 sec. and w/a 10 min. exposure so much heat is generated, the CCD reads this as photons and the image is degraded. It was still fun to be out exposing and enjoying the cool (60) Hawaiian night. I'll try again tonite IF it doesn't rain as predicted.
Aloha Rob
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Hi Deb The lens I finally used to image was a 200mm F4 Micro Nikkor. I started off w/ a 600mm which was too tight as was a 300mm Nikkor, the 200mm captured the view but was tough to frame w/ the camera pointed to the zenith. I had set up on the front pier but the roof overhang was blocking my view so I set up the tripod on the deck and had fun. I still have to stack some images from last night and see if I can get a bit better image. I have decided to get the G11 mount and a true astro CCD. The D100 is a good camera but it really isn't designed for astro work, I even have noise when I do long exposures in the studio or location and that's w/ the noise reduction program on. Oh well ......... aloha Rob PS it was cool here to last night 61 I actually had to wear a jacket and pants :-)
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Rob Ratkowski