Fragmentation of Comet Atlas Nucleus
Taken by Bill Williams on April 16, 2020 @
Chiefland Astronomy Village, Florida
Click photo for larger image
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Camera Used: SBIG STX-16803 3 CCD Camera Unavailable
Exposure Time: Unavailable
Aperture: Unavailable
ISO: Unavailable
Date Taken: 2020:04:17 08:58:30
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Details:
Seeing the beautiful fragmentation images taken from Switzerland as displayed on Spaceweather.com, I just had to try my hand at imaging this phenomenon. A cold front just passed through north Florida leaving transparent but turbulent air and Comet Atlas being up only 30-35 degrees elevation made the effort even more challenging. However, in moments of decent seeing, I could see two comet nuclei in single 2-minute exposures. So I took 43 2-minute exposures with 0.37M RCOS telescope and SBIG 16803 camera and stacked them to increase signal-to-noise and voila! Surprised at the irregular tail. Hope someone else imaged this last night for comparison. A pre-fragmentation image from March 21 is also attached.
Photographer's website:
https://http://www.williamsseaandsky.com/?page_id=8715
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