As Chuck said, Lovejoy is getting to be pretty easy to find. I just spotted it with 10x50s and 11x80s. Oddly it was less obvious in the C-5, maybe because of it's f/11 focal ratio. I tried imaging it with the C14 but it's so bright that even a 3 second exposure saturated the chip so I thought I'd see what I could do with the tail. Here's a hastily thrown together mosaic-of-sorts made up of 3 one minute exposures. Very little attempt was made to make the final product look pretty rather I just wanted to see how far the tail stretches: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/lj2013nov12.jpg Total width is just over half a degree. I saw no sign of a tail optically but it's nice to know there's one there. I can't help but wonder if Mike has observed it with the 1.8m. Also can't help but wonder what Tyler could do with Lovejoy (that was a hint, Tyler <g> ). patrick
Nice shots! The f/11 is part of the reason why it's less obvious but it directly relates to magnification. The effective focal length of almost 1400mm means you are spreading the light of the object out over a greater area. A shorter focal length, even at a reduced aperture (such as the binos), concentrates more light in a smaller area. If you tried the C-5 at a lower magnification, by either switching eyepieces or using a focal reducer, it might have been a bit more easily seen, albeit smaller in the FOV. Have you thought of mounting a second camera piggyback on the big scope, with a shorter focal-length camera lens mounted to it? Sort of like what you were doing when you were shooting with the 5-inch Schmidt camera? Keep it coming! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:45 AM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:
As Chuck said, Lovejoy is getting to be pretty easy to find. I just spotted it with 10x50s and 11x80s. Oddly it was less obvious in the C-5, maybe because of it's f/11 focal ratio.
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Chuck Hards -
Wiggins Patrick