Comet Swan and M13, 10/28/2006
Swan flies past M13, the famous "Great Cluster" globular cluster in Hercules. From the HAS site near Columbus, fighting a 42% illuminated moon, about 52 degrees away as far as I can tell, 2 hours after sunset.
Image details top: 2 minute exposure ISO 800 Canon EOS 20Da, Nikon 300mm f2.8 ED lens with adapter at f2.8 with flat, but no dark. Single shot, full frame at ~8:43 p.m. For the astro geeks, the field of view is equivalent to a 480mm lens on 35mm file, and covers 217x325 arc minutes, or around 3.5 degrees by 5.5 degrees. This is a much wider angle than my 754mm TOA 130 (with reducer), and you can see the tail extends even beyond the frame above. Lots of noise and flat field processing in Photoshop. There's a bit of a hot spot still on the bottom right from my camera's amp glow.
Image details bottom: same but taken at 8:20 p.m. and about 6 passes of GradientXterminator to get rid of the moon light gradient, my imperfect flat field, etc.
Copyright © 2006 by Dick Locke. All Rights Reserved.
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