Monday, October 20, 2014

watching comet siding spring approach mars

i work with a very interesting doer-of-all-astronomy-tech-things steve lee (of "Steve and the Stars" fame).  over the last couple nights, as comet siding spring has rushed towards mars at 56 km/s, steve has been taking images using two of his own telescopes that live near siding spring observatory in new south wales, australia.

the distant astronomical objects i study in the universe do not really change or move noticeably in the time that i've been studying them (or even over a human lifetime).  so i find it very exciting to be able to watch a comet zoom across a field of view over the period of 24 hours!

here are two images of comet siding spring, mars, and milky way dust taken 24 hours apart using the same setup (90mm refractor + Canon 6D, 7x1min exposures summed), but cropped slightly differently. you can clearly see the motions of both the comet and mars again the background stars and dust contours of the milky way galaxy.

Comet Siding Spring, Mars, and Milky Way dust taken 18 Oct 2014 by Steve Lee
Comet Siding Spring, Mars, and Milky Way dust taken 19 Oct 2014 by Steve Lee 

now for a different comparison - here is an image of the same region of sky, but captured through a different telescope setup and exposure detail (31cm f/5 Newtonian + Canon 6D,  single 2 minute exposure).

Comet Siding Spring, Mars, and Milky Way dust taken 19 Oct 2014 by Steve Lee
cool stuff.

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