After such a long period with cloud/fog cover, the sky finally cleared for a few hour today, allowing for a nice view of comet 45p.
Visually, with the naked eye, the comet was easily seen, with an estimated magnitude of +4.0 to +4.2 and an apparent diameter equal to that of the Moon. Through an 115mm refractor at 32x, the comet filled almost half the field of view, with a distinct but small nucleus, and an elongated inner coma.
The following shot was acquired using a Canon 550D at ISO 1600, Sigma Macro 50mm at F/4, and 12 exposures each a 30 sec sub, for a total of just 6 minutes under mag +6 skies.
Seen here the comet forms a triangle with the Pleiades and the Hyades clusters. In the next few days 45p will glide close to the Pleiades making for a nice photo-op. Hope to have clear skies again…
A couple of images acquired with the 115mm refractor and ASI 1600MMC Pro camera. Using rather short 15sec exposure I was able to get a clean view of the nucleus; this allowed the use of the Larson-Sekanina filter which reveals the inner coma jets.
Processing part the frames in a different manner, one can show just how the comet looks through the eyepiece between the stars:
maximus photography 