Post
by Lorenzo Comolli » Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:32 am
Comet Pan-STARRS with 3 tails!
From the analysis of 100 averaged imaged, I've found 3 tails: ion (1), sodium? (2) and dust (3). Even if very faint, the ion tail seems to be there, visible only in the BLUE channel. Instead the second tail is completely absent in blue and thus cannot be ion. A hypotesis is the sodium tail. The third tail in the wide dust one. I hope to have the opportunity to get other images in the next days, for confirming the very faint blue tail. And I hope someone will make a spectrum of that secondary tail to understand the composition.
I submit a 3 channel split showing the tails, and also an RGB composition. Tech details: TEC 140 apo refractor, Canon 60D, average of 100 exposures of 4 s each, 800-3200 ISO. Imaged at about 18.30 UT, 15 March 2013
Author and copyright: Lorenzo Comolli (
http://www.astrosurf.com/comolli/index2.htm )
http://spaceweather.com/submissions/pic ... 691974.jpg
[attachment=0]lorenzocomet.jpg[/attachment]
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Last edited by owlice on Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Attached smaller image for faster downloading; left link to larger image. Please keep images under 400K. Thanks for sharing!