17P Holmes - 1 attachment

New image of comet Holmes.

Nikon D200 on 6" f/5 newt with 40mm eyepiece projection.

5 seconds at ISO 1600.

Due to the inability to get the eyepiece close enough to the
imaging plane, I had to use an empty barlow tube to pull the
camera back far enough to get focus. The method made for a
lot of coma, as can be seen in the star on the bottom right.

Also, this exposure was manually tracked. It's an old GEM
mount with no motors, so yes, I was manually turning the RA
knob while staring through the finder scope. Even so, it took
quite a few tries before I had some decent tracking.

Light pollution in the LA basin is horrendous. I managed to make
a flat which helped. Processing was done in PSP. Nothing fancy.
I'm no 'pro' at this.

I cropped and reduced by 4x to smooth out graininess due to
the high ISO.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?