The following images were made 2004 May 21, 5:50 UT with a Nikon 90 mm (87.1 mm EFL) camera lens set to f/5.6 (i.e. aperture of 0.61 inch) attached to a SBIG ST-8XE CCD, mounted piggy-back to a Celestron CGE-1400 telescope at the Bruce Gary Observatory in Hereford AZ.

Figure 1. Comet-tracked sum of 82 1-minute exposures. FOV is 9.0 x 6.0 degrees, north up, east left.

Figure 2. The 3 tails are apparent here: aqua outlines the ion tail, brown outlines the dust tail, and green outlines the solar-pointing tail.

Figure 3. Same image but contrast-inverted. The "ion tail" (thin strands) is north of the diffuse "dust tail."

Figure 4. Animation using 17 frames spanning a time interval of 1.89 hours. FOV = 4.6 x 27 degrees. Each frame is a median combine of 5 1-minute exposures.  Notice a "mysterious object" on the left part of the imagegs and moving to the right. It has a FWHM significantly greater than for the stars (~4 pixels versus 2.2 pixels). It's appearance might be mistaken for a comet, however, there's a more "prosaic" explanation: I think it's the reflection within the lens system of the bright star at the bottom of the frame, and the movement is caused by tracking drift (causing the star field to move to the left).

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This site opened:  May 21, 2004 .  Last Update:  May 21, 2004