Comet 2002 V1 (NEAT)


This photo of comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT) was taken at about 11:00 UT 5/march/2003. And is a 6 min exposure using a f 3.5 135mm lens (stopped down one stop) and pentax camera piggybacked on a C8 telescope. The comet image is suffering from field rotation.
This may have been the result of inadequate polar alignment of the telescope and /or failure to rebalance the telescope after we moved it for the second time, before the shots were taken. :-((
Credit: S.Leffanue K.jones Film:Fuji 800

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Again same pic, this time inverted to colour negative to accentuate cometary details.
In this version you can more clearly see the dimmer, spread out, rare type III tail (dust) to the left of the main central curving type II tail (dust) - and on the right of the main tail is the slender gas / ion tail ( type I ). A rare three tailed comet.
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This version of the same shot is overprocessed in photoshop, to bring out certain details.

All pics are cropped down.
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Another photo of 2002 V1 taken on the same night (5 min exp.). This particular shot was badly affected by the light that got into the roll of film (via a perished felt light baffle), which then overexposed and tainted the whole roll of film, to varying degrees. (as if the field rotation wasnt enough!)
As a result a fair bit of faint comet detail was lost in this particular photo, but it does suffer less from field rotation than the first photo.


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Same photo as above but inverted.
Credit: S.Leffanue K.Jones
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