Successful Comet SWAN Image !

Hi All, I set about this evening (Oct 26th) trying to observe and image Comet SWAN, and what a session! I stood in my backyard for 2 hours waiting for the low flying clouds and high winds to clear, when at 9pm, suddenly the skies cleared for a period of 30 minutes. Observing with my 9x60mm binoculars, I could easily see the comet, with a hint of a tail through some light pollution in the northwest sky. To my delight, the globular cluster M13, top center of the image, at magnitude 5.8, could just fit in to my field of view 5.5 degrees away, making an excellent comparison of the comet's brightness.

This comet had suddenly brightened on the 24th of October to an estimated magnitude 4.5, and I could easily see that this was so when comparing it to M13. The colour of the nucleus was a bright green with the hint of a 2 degree tail pointing away from the northwest horizon. From this shot I can see that the tail is indeed approximatley 3 degrees in length. I also notice that at about 1 degree out from the nucleus, there is a disturbance in the tail, probably due to fragmentation of the nucleus, and hence an increase in brightness on the 24th. I was delighted to image this comet with my Canon 300D, 85mm lens, and here is the result, It's a 100 second exposure at ISO 400, the camera itself piggybacked on a C8.
Hope you like it !
Keith..

Great image Keith, with both the comet and M13 in the shot. They will be getting closer over the next few nights, maybe it will be time for a longer focal lenght lens. That is of course if the clouds clear again.
Great work...

that's a lovely image Keith!

How far out of the field of view do you think M13 is? Could you possibly catch the two together tomorrow night when they are a bit closer do you think? That would be one stunning image!

Bart.

That is a super image for just a longexposure piggyback Keith! You know, it really reminds of what Machholz looked like almost 2 years ago!

Great shot, well done!

Great stuff Keith, It captures perfectly what I was seeing last night. ANy chance you could send me a high res version. I will pm you my address.

That's a beautiful image! You should send that to Spaceweather. They've setup a Swan gallery. I haven't seen another pic that has M13 in it as well as the comet.

Trev