– January 17, 2015
Hello,
From the looks of the ASOD webpage, Comet Q2 Lovejoy is getting the attention it deserves from observers around the globe. Some really fine sketches are here.
I did this high magnification study of the comet using my 35cm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope under the dark, transparent skies of wintertime rural Appalachia. Even using my lowest magnification eyepiece to give the widest field of view. the head of the comet and the beginning of the ion tail and the dust tail filled the field.
The short fan shaped dust tail stretched from about PA 100° to 170° and was hard to differentiate from the coma. The longer ion tail at PA 80° was highlighted with streamers and extended outwards for several fields. The very bright pseudo-nucleus was flanked by two background stars.
The moonless night was chilly, 21°F (-6°C), so I did the sketch from field notes immediately after coming indoors. A blending stump loaded with 2B or HB graphite was used for the coma and tail with additional blending with my finger. The stars were made with an HB pencil. I tweaked the gamma when scanning and flipped the drawing during processing to give the correct image view (north up/west to the right).
I expect astrosketchers will continue to have fun with this comet–it’s a nice one.
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)
Comet
Twin Sugars Observatory Friars Hill, West Virginia USA
17 January 2015 0130 UT
Graphite on white paper inverted digitally
Regards,
Michael Rosolina
Hey Michael, you here again,
As always a superb sketch linked with a very interesting report.
Kind regards
Michel
Michael,
Enjoyed your sketch and details of the observation. This comet takes high power well! Great sketch.
Cindy
Michael,
This is an excellent sketch of comet Lovejoy.
It is nice to have a bright comet coasting through our skies for
all of us to observe.
Frank 🙂
Thanks to all for your very kind comments.