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FIRST
REPORTS OF NAKED-EYE VISIBILITY: Comet Lulin is
now visible to the naked eye from dark-sky sites. "This morning,
Feb 6th, I noticed a faint smudge above Zubenelgenubi,"
reports Jeff Barton from the Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus
in West Texas. "I then trained my 9x63 binoculars on the
fuzzy patch. Yep, nailed it! I was thrilled to finally bag Comet
Lulin without optical aid."
Another
naked-eye sighting report comes from Martin McKenna of Maghera,
Northern Ireland: "I went out for a look at Comet Lulin this
morning, Feb. 6th, before dawn with my telescope and binoculars.
The Moon was very low, so I stood within the shadow of my house
and tried to see the comet without optical aid. Using averted
vision, I was able to glimpse the comet perhaps a dozen times!
It looked like a large grey patch of light very close to Zubenelgenubi.
The sight gave me a warm glow on such a frigid frosty night."
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Photographer,
Location |
Images |
Comments |
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Gregg Ruppel,
Ellisville, MO
Feb. 6, 2009 |
#1,
#2, #3,
more |
Comet Lulin passing just north of the bright star Zubenelgenubi (alpha2 Librae) on 2/6/09
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Mike Broussard,
Maurice, Louisiana, USA
Feb. 6, 2009 |
#1,
more |
Comet Lulin
on Feb 6th, 2009, 11:20 UT. I woke up at 4:30 am and started
taking pictures soon afterward. It was a beautiful morning,
very clear and not too cold. While the camera took the images,
I got a view of the comet in binoculars. Wow, it was nice!
Photo
details: 15 x 4 min @ ISO 1600, TV-85 at F/5.6,
Hutech
Canon
XS, IDAS-LPS, Atlas EQ-G w/EQMOD. |
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Rolando
Ligustri,
using a remotely-operated telescope in New Mexico
Feb. 6, 2009 |
#1,
more |
Photo
details: apo 106/530 ccd STL11000 in bin 2x2 L=180s
B=120s G-R=60s |
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Ugur Ikizler,
Kapanca - Mudanya - Bursa, Turkey
Feb. 6, 2009 |
#1 |
Photo
details: Canon
Rebel XT - Hutech
modified - Sigma APO DG 70-300 ( 300 mm )- f/ 5,6 -
ISO 800 - 11 x 60 sec. - Home-made mount - ImagesPlus, Photoshop
CS2 |
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Chris Schur,
Payson, Arizona
Feb. 4, 2009 |
#1,
more |
This is actually
a very challenging photographic object because it is moving
fast against the background stars. Brillianat cyan in color
this 6th magnitude object is currently within 5 degrees
of orbital plane crossing and we can see an stubby anti
tail on the left side of this image. Now for the interesting
part as far as processing. Normally when you shoot a moving
comet with a filtered CCD, your star trails are RGBRGB beads
of light, when you stack the nucleus of the comet. Here,
I tried a new technique to bring most of the color back
to the stars, and not see the rather undesirable rainbow
streaks. But how was this accomplished? You can read more
on my web
site... |
more
images:
from
Rob Stinson of Perth, Australia; from
Bill Gucfa of Rehoboth, Massachusetts; from
James Champagne of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; from
Martin Wagner of Sonnenbuehl-Genkingen, Germany; from
Guilherme Grassmann of Americana, São Paulo, Brasil;
from
Catalin M. Timosca of Turda, Romania; |
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