Comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) - monday 2 January
After a two week interlude, I finally managed to get a telescopic image of the comet. Unfortunately it has faded significantly, so I had to use all my skillset. These two images are the same data, in one I have simply combined the data together, the other has had the stars removed by a data rejection algorithm. I have some colour data for the star field which I may add in later. These images are presented in inverse (negative) mode so that you can see the comet tail more clearly. I could find no evidence of a comet head or condensation. The images are a stack of 20 five minute exposures through a 10” Ritchey-Cretien telescope, the scope was tracked at a custom rate corresponding to that of the comet using a Paramount MX.
