Astroblog: Comet 168P, 23 October 2102

Friday, October 26, 2012

Comet 168P, 23 October 2102

Comet 168P imaged in iTelescope T5, the image is a stack of 5 x 120 second iages stacked on the comet (that's why the stars are elongated) . Image stretched in FITS liberator, then SUMMED in ImageJ and despeckled (click to embiggen).

Comet 168P Hergenrother continues to be bright, and there have been suggestions that there are fragments in the coma of the comet, but my image isn't high resolution enough to show that.

Here are some other nice images though. From Roland Ligustri (and here) , Gustavo Muller, Roberto Barcellona, and Jean-Francois Soulier.

Update: The comet has split! See here for details.Video here.

Animation here

Labels: comet, iTelescope