Two comets

Last night (04-Feb-2016) I captured two comets. They are both not far from Polaris this time.

Left image: C/2013 US10 (Catalina)
Right image: C/2014 S2 (Panstarrs)
The comets are in the center of respective images. Stars are marked for better orientation.

Canon EOS 600D + EF 50mm f/1.8 II on a tripod.

1st: C/2013 US10 (Catalina) ~21:35 (UT+2)
f/2.5 10x12s ISO800

2nd: C/2014 S2 (Panstarrs) ~21:08 (UT+2)
f/2.5 60x3s ISO800

The second comet was close to the horizon where light pollution was bigger.

Both sky areas are ~3x3 degrees in size.

According to CometBase, the brightness of the first comet is ~7m (http://cometbase.net/en/observation/listObserv/121); the second one is dimmer: not brighter than 9m (http://cometbase.net/en/observation/listObserv/1119)

Orion

Probably the most beautiful winter constellation -- Orion -- in the evening on 1 February 2016 during a short period of clear sky. A constellation art is taken from Jan Heweliusz’s Uranographia.

Great Orion Nebula is seen near sword hilt. A bright star on the down-left is Sirius (the brightest star in the sky).

The original picture is shown below.

Canon EOS 600D + Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II; exposure 10s; f/3.5; ISO=1600.

Kyiv (Osokorky).

C/2013US10 (Catalina) in Camelopardalis

There was evidence of a good seeing last evening however weather had turned bad quickly. Nevertheless, I managed to take an "express" picture of the comet during a short period of clear sky.

The picture was taken using Canon EOS 600D (on a tripod) with EF50mm f/1.8 lens.
This is an average of 10 frames (3s each); f/2.5; ISO=3200. Frames were processed using DeepSkyStacker, then with FITStacker (resulted image) and finally with RawTherapee. Date/time: 30-Jan-2016 ~20:07 EET (UT+2). Place: Kyiv (Osokorky).

Zoomed part of comet's vicinity. There is a visible coma of about 5' in diameter (size of the image is 1.18 x 1.18 degrees -- by Astrometry.net)

Comet and Arcturus

Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) on 29-Dec-2015 at between half-past five and six o'clock a.m. (Eastrern European Time) from Kyiv (Osokorky) in a rare clear (and frosty: -8*C) night which occurred for a long period of cloudy weather. A green spot in the lower-right quadrant is the comet; a bright orange star is Arcturus -- Alpha Boötes.

Comet's tails are dimmer than on 8-Dec, probably because of bigger distance between the comet and the Sun: at the time of shooting it was 171 million km while on 8-Dec the distance was 138 million km only so the comet's activity declined. The tails are visible in the second black-and-white picture with enhanced contrast.

Equipment: Canon EOS 600D + EF 50mm f/1.8 II on a fixed tripod.
Image made by averaging of 100 frames with exposure of 4s; ISO=3200; f/2.5.
Software: DeepSkyStacker; FITStacker; RawTherapee.

Visual move of the comet on the stars' background during observation (about half an hour):

An orange star above the comet is HIP 69585 with a visual magnitude of about 6.5m.

Each frame of this animated GIF is composed of 10 initial frames (with exposure of 4s each).

Here is a simulation of comet's orbit (from http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/) for a period from my first observation (8 Dec) to the current:

Speed relative to Sun is ~39.4 km/s [on 29-Dec at 5:30 EET by http://www.heavens-above.com]
The comet is hyperbolic, so it will leave the Solar System.

Moon with Earthshine and Venus

Moon (with earthshine) and Venus
8-Dec-2015 5:48 EET (UT+2)

Canon EOS 600D + EF 50mm f/1.8; ISO 200; 1/2s; f/2.2

Comet and Venus

Yet another variant of picture taken on 08-Dec-2015 with comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) and Venus.

Canon EOS 600D + EF 50mm f/1.8 on tripod; 100x3s frames (05:59-06:09 EET (UT+2)); ISO=3200; f/2.2; DSS+FITStacker+RawTherapee.


After cropping and removing gradient:

Variant with smoothing:

Comet C/2013 US10 (CATALINA): tails

The comet shooted by Canon EOS 600D + EF 50mm f/1.8 on tripod this morning before dawn.

Two tails of the comet have different composition. Ionised gases are blown by sunwind to a direction opposite to the Sun (a tail directed to the right and upwards); dusty tail directed downwards; comet moves to the left and upwards.

Serie of frames was taken 08-Dec-2015 between 05:59 and 06:19 EET (UT+2)

Resulted images are sum of 200 frames; each frame exposure is 3s.

Other parameters: ISO=3200; f/2.2.

Software: DeepSkyStacker, FITStacker, RawTherapee.

Comet's orbit (by calsky.com):