Comet Tuttle

I know the weather has been (in lieu of a more colourful word) 'frustrating'
but have any of you observed comet Tuttle yet?
I had a look at its orbit in Starry Night and boy does it move!
I was checking to see did it pass by anything interesting
and it passes by M33 at 10PM on the 30th of Dec.
I was going to ask had anyone planned to image it but looking at
how fast it moves I wonder how you might get both in the same shot!

Tuttle is predicted (should that be 'hoped' ?) to brighten quite nicely
by mid month, nothing as spectacular as Holmes of course but
might we even see it naked eye? Heres to hoping so.

Actually,
I was just thinking.
As it's quite close to Polaris I wonder if you took a long exposure
star trail shot (say of an hour or two) would Tuttle show up like
one of the stars but leaving an arc slightly different to the others because
it is moving amongst them?

Hmmm...

Actually,
one of the stars but leaving an arc slightly different to the others because
it is moving amongst them?

Hmmm...

Yea, that's exactly what it would do, imaging at the pole is real easy as thing tend to move slower up there compared to the likes of the celestial equator, so it abit more forgiving to a not so accurate mount.
I'll be keeping my eye on this comet over the next few weeks, presuming the weather gets better.

Frank,

This was Tuttle on the 3rd Nov taken as a comparison to Holmes when it was about mag 12.



I was waiting for some decent weather to have another go but I have now dismantled all my imaging gear to deliver the ED80 to Seanie and guess what........its clear tonight.

Gentlemen,

My initial target for this evening will be this particular comet and which will keep getting better over the next few weeks.

Surrounding its close approach to M33, it will have to be a two-part exercise due to its rapid apparent motion. Using the same set of exposures, we stack using the comet's nucleus so as to have our master comet image and then restack the originals using the background stars for our master M33 image. We then choose an appropriate original exposure as a basis for combining the master M33 and master comet images.

When stacking to produce the two master images, we use a median combine (in lieu of an average combine) so that the comet or M33 will only appear in each of the master images.

looks as if Tuttle is becoming a naked eye object....just....
(helps if you live in Kansas too)


www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&...nth=12&year=2007