COMET 6P, and TWO NEBULAS

 Location:  Prince of Wales, NB, Canada

Date Time:  November 5, 2021 2000-2130hrs

Weather:  No clouds, no wind, very cool, 0c with 60% humidity.

Attendance:  David McCashion

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80ED/APO with Canon Rebel t3 attached at prime focus.  Images processed with PhotoShop.

Objective:  To image magnitude 10.1 Comet 6P d'Arrest, which was reported to be below Jupiter and Saturn, in Microscopium, in the south western sky during observing time.

Report:

• A nearly perfectly still, quite, moonless, dark night.  Less then a tenth of the airplane traffic as before the pandemic started.
  
• Jupiter and Saturn shining brightly in the south west, the summer triangle hanging high overhead, to the west.
• Made first attempt for 6P right away.  Found that it didn't pop out in images, although I thought I could make out a fuzz ball.  The comet was less then 10 degrees above the south west horizon, just above the tree line, which is very low, and not good for observing or imaging comets.  Decided to slew to Vega to adjust focus.
• After adjusting focus on Vega, decided to image the nearby Ring Nebula M57, in Lyra the Harp.  The image appeared as a stunningly colorful ball of teal green light appeared in view screen.  Shocking that such a thing can be imaged thus.  Visually it appears as a magnitude 8.8, grayish smoke ring, which is in itself amazing to see...in images, it looks absolutely stunning, nothing like visually imo.  The Nebula is shown next to the variable star Sheliak, which ranges in brightness from 3.4 to 4.5.  According to Richard Hinckley Allen's "Star Names Their Lore and Meaning," Sheliak is an Arabian name for Lyra.  Hinckly also suggests that the proper name of Vega is Wega.  "Wega, less correctly Vega, originated in the Alfonsine Tables from the Waki of the Arabs, Bayer,having both titles; Scaliger, Waghi,..."
  

Single shot, 45 second, ISO 1600, cropped and enhanced.

 

• On my way back to the comet, decided to try imaging the magnitude 7.5 Dumbbell Nebula M27.  Only imaged once.  Spectacular, bright green nebula.

Single shot, 50 second, ISO 1600, cropped and enhanced.

 

• Took many images of comet, and used heavens above star chart to confirm the very big, very diffuse object, with no brighter central region was indeed Comet 6P d'Arrest.  It's low position in the sky made imaging difficult.  The location of the comet in the sky is kind of odd as well, compared to where the other comets are located in the sky.  The comets magnitude 10.1 brightness must be attributed to its size, which was approximately full Moon size.

Single shot, 120sec, ISO 3200, cropped and enhanced.

A negative of the image above to better show the very diffuse comet.

 

•  Two very fast, faint shooting stars were seen.  Both coming from the summer triangle.