Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on 8.01.2015 - seven panel mosaic

Size: 2000 px

© Velimir Popov & Emil Ivanov 2014

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) was discovered on 17 August 2014 by Terry Lovejoy using a 0.2-meter (8 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. It is is a long-period comet.By December 2014 the comet had brightened to roughly magnitude 7.4 making it a small telescope and binoculars target. By mid-December the comet was visible to the naked eye for experienced observers with dark skies. This 7 panel mosaic shows the comet on January 8th 2015, due to the tail's fast moving only one LRGB set per frame was possible. The mosaic was assembled using Georg Viehoever's GradientMergeMosiac tool in PixInsight. A longer exposure image only of the frame containing the comet's nuclei can be seen here. Short video showing the motion of the comet and its tail can be seen below:

Image details:

Annotation

Center of field RA	04:21:11 (h:m:s)
Center of field DE	00:24:47 (deg:m:s)
Size	4.98 x 5.18 (deg)
Pixel scale:	8.97 (arcsec/pixel)
Orientation:	Up is -72.1 degrees E of N

Charts and image details obtained from Astrometry.net

Optic(s):	ASA 12" Astrograph @ f/3.6 (Newton)
Mount:	ASA DDM85 Standard
Camera:	SBIG STL 11000 M
Filters:	Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, Astronomik filters
Dates/Times:	8. 01. 2015
Location:	IRIDA Observatory, BG, longitude: E 24 44' 18", latitude: N 41 41' 42"
Exp. Details:	L:7x2 min; R:7x2 min, G:7x2 min, B:7x2 min Bin 2, Total Exposure Time - 56 min
More details:	Dark and flat frames reduction, 7 panel mosaic
Processing:	PixInsight / PS

e-mail: info@irida-observatory.org

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