*Photo opportunity!* Garradd meets M15

[Big Dipper]

Although I'm enjoying a well overdue thunderstorm at present I'm hoping that the predicted clear slots for tonight will give me an opportunity to see/image a conjunction between Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) and M15, a globular cluster in Pegasus.

I hope that these customized star maps from Starry Night Pro are legible as they show the relative positions of comet/cluster at just before midnight tonight (02/08/2011) BST (UT+1) and the same time tomorrow night - by which time the comet will be pulling away from M15.

The rectangular boxes show the approximate view of the conjunction through lenses of varying focal lengths ranging from 500mm (yellow) through to 135mm (red) with a 300mm field of view shown by the purple rectangular box. The orange circle shows the approximate view through a pair of 10X50 binoculars.


Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) and M15 at just before 23:00 UT (midnight BST) on Tuesday 2 August 2011.



Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) and M15 at just before 23:00 UT (midnight BST) on Wednesday 3 August 2011.

Good luck to everyone trying to observe/image this conjunction over the next couple of nights. Hopefully some of us will have some successful images & reports to share with the rest of us!

[markt]

Hmmm, the comet is around mag 8 aswell, it has potential... 

[martinastro]

Thanks for the post Andy!!, all we need now is a clear sky, looks like a nice comet with CCD images showing a faint tail, it should brighten a good bit too in the months ahead, good luck all 

[Anton]

Got the scope setup on my new pier last night spent a while aligning then attached DSRL via piggyback mount all ready to go and guess what the clouds come rolling in grr, will have another go tonight.

[rjgjr]

I used a poor man's telescope last night to get my first image of Comet Garradd, a 50 mm lens and 100% crop, lol. Good to catch another comet though. Looking forward to seeing the images on the forum from the real astronomers! Your chart really helped Andy. I'll try noise reduction tonight.


50mm 10 sec f/2 1600 ISO 23:29 local time.

[Big Dipper]

LOL Anton & Richard - at least neither of you managed to doze off before setting up!!

I woke up again at about 2am by which time I, too was being greeted by some high cloud & misty conditions. Luckily I had already printed off a couple of star maps earlier on & managed to set up my AstroTrac & star hop to M15 within a few minutes. Neither M15 or the comet were visible in my 6X30 finderscope but M15 quickly showed up on a test shot as a fuzzy star - so I knew that I had got the right field of view!

Richard congratulations on getting some lovely colour in your shot. My comet looked very anemic (perhaps it, too, had only just woken up!) though the images were littered with colourful hot pixels due to the humid conditions here last night. Anyway I just managed to record both comet & M15 - though the comet is really faint and because I only used my 300mm zoom lens in the end, the glob looks pretty stellar (though it began to reveal itself as a glob when I zoomed into it on my DSLR's LCD screen). Anyway, for what it's worth, here's my shot from last night.


I thought that I would also try (but failed!) to see if I could do a short animation to show the slight movement of the comet. However I rather liked the 'twinkly star' effect when I turned the animation to greyscale; the twinkle having been caused by the random hot pixels in each frame due to the humid conditions.


Anton hope you had the lovely clear skies that I've enjoyed tonight - though I see on Sat24.com that the cloud bringing tomorrow's predicted slightly damp weather is now racing in towards me!!

[rjgjr]

That's a great first shot Andy and great detail from your 300mm lens. I hope the weather clears for you and ther others soon.

[Anton]

Well you had better luck than me Andy. The observing conditions here were a bum and very humid therefore I only took a few general wide few images just to show conditions.

[rjgjr]

Still a great photo Anton, love the movement of the clouds and there is such great detail and focus despite the LP and conditions. What lens did you use? Did you try cropping the image, looks like I can see M 15, you might have the comet in there! Anyway, great job.

[Anton]

Thanks Richard, I used the 10 - 24mm at 10mm ISO 800 F3.5 with a 36 second exposure, no crop. I'm sure Garradd is there some where. No chance of viewing here tonight due to poor weather.

[markt]

Great work chaps! 

[Big Dipper]

Yes congratulations Anton. You have recorded a fair amount of detail there as well as showing how bright & destructive the cloud was for those of us attempting to image the comet. I must admit that I was a little disappointed in what I'd managed to record as I'd led myself to believe, mainly from having read observation reports on other forums, that it would look a tad grander.

August of 2011 certainly won't be remembered as the best August ever for observing/imaging bearing in mind that we have the peak of what is arguably the best meteor shower of the year coinciding with a Full Moon!! 

[Roman White]

Hi there,

Half year later the comet meets M92 cluster in Hercules. I've missed the closest conjunction yesterday (clouded), but hope for a view tonight. 

[Anton]

Unfortunately conditions here at my location are not favourable for observing tonight



And these were the conditions the the night before, it took a while for we to get warm again lol