Date Time: December 18, 2019 1700-midnight.
Weather: Very cool, no wind, -8C to -10C, no dew, mostly cloudy, with an approximately 30 minutes of clear sky from 2200 to 2230hrs , to mostly cloudy.
Attendance: David McCashion
Equipment: Canadian telescopes 80ED/APO on a tracking mount with Canon Rebel t3 attached at prime focus. Images processed with Photoshop.
Objective: To search for comet C/2017 T2 Panstarrs which was reported to be in the constellation Perseus by heavens-above.com.
Report:
- Sky clouded over shortly after dark, around 1700hrs, and didn't clear until around 2200hrs.
- Aligned scope on four stars, and then began a search in the area to the north of Perseus brightest stars, where the comet was thought to be. At this time, around 2220hrs, Perseus was almost straight up, slightly to the north, which made it exceedingly difficult to image.
- Imaged five different field of views in the area, where I thought comet should be, but during the last two, clouds started to move in. Last image, which turned out terribly, I think captured the comet, but not sure. Was clouded out for till midnight, when I decided to pack it in. Here is the image that I think has the comet in it. In the upper right.
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| Possibly captured comet in upper right of image. Single shot, 47 second, ISO 6400, imaged at 2234hrs, as clouds were moving in to cover sky. |
- In the second image, captured open star cluster NGC 1528. According to Burnham's Celestial Handbook, by Robert Burnham, Jr. this open cluster contains "about 80 stars mags 8...1 degree NNW from b1 Persei".
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| NGC 1528 next to b1 Persei taken at 2225hrs. Single shot, raw ISO 6400, 66 second, and focal length of 50mm. |
- No satellites, one bright shooting star, high, to the south west of Orion, heading NNE.
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