TWO COMETS, TWO NEBULAS AND ORION

Location:  Prince of Wales, NB, Canada

Date Time:  Sept 12, 2021  0400-0600hrs

Weather:  No wind, cool, humid, mostly clear to partly cloudy towards 530am, 11C and 89% humidity.  Lots of dew and some mosquitos.

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80 ed/apo with Canon Rebel t3 with 18-55mm lens.  Images processed with PhotoShop.

Attendance:  David McCashion

Objective:  To view and image three comets in the morning, eastern sky.  Comet 4P Faye, at 11.9 magnitude in Taurus, and C/2019 L3 Atlas in Lynx, in between Gemini and Auriga.  Also, the brightest comet in our sky now, Comet 8P Tuttle (mag 8.9) in Hydra, very low on the horizon, just before first light.

Report:

• Setup and aligned scope on the summer triangle stars, still visible along the western horizon.  Jupiter was low in the south west and very bright, like an oncoming plane.
• Tried viewing and imaging the bright Orion's Nebula.  Viewed with binoculars.  Spectacular!  Much to see and huge in binos.  Colors.  Orion the Hunter is rising quite high in the morning sky now.  A sign that fall isn't far away.
  

•  Imaged M1 The Crab Nebula, before looking for my first comet of the night.  It's a faint 8.4 magnitude nebula not far from where the much fainter, magnitude 11.9 comet 4P Faye is located on this early morning. Both objects located in Taurus, near the end of one of the bulls horns.
  

M1 The Crab Nebula 30s, ISO 6400

 

Comet 4P Faye 30s, ISO 6400.  Image not enhanced or cropped.

Comet 4P Faye enhanced and cropped to better show the very faint comet.

• Comet C/2019 L3 Atlas was located fairly high in the north eastern sky, above Gemini and below the bright stat Capella.  A very faint comet, without a tail, that I could discern, I was able to confirm it by comparing to star charts and matching the bright stars in the images to the charts.  

Comet C/2019 L3 Atlas, cropped and enhanced.

•  After imaging Comet L3 Atlas, it was time to try for Comet 8P Tuttle, but clouds moved into that area of the sky.  Also, the comet just barely came over the horizon by first light, and was still too low because of the treeline.  Even if it was clear, I don't think it would have been possible to get the fairly faint comet through the increasing light.  It's just too close to the Sun, in my opinion.

Comet 8P Tuttle was supposed to be located to the right of the reddish light.  Not an easy location to capture a fairly faint comet, even if it's clear.

•  No satellites seen, with one picked up in images.  One shooting star was seen, going straight down, between Taurus and Orion.  Short, fast and faint.