Comet C/2009 F1 Larson

This new comet discovered by S. M. Larson, University of Arizona, on survey images taken with the Mount Lemmon 1.5m telescope showing a coma diameter 4"-6" was posted on the minor planet center neo confirmation page as 9FAF233 for other observatories to confirm.

On a stack of 18 CCD images 60 seconds each in fairly good seeing a fuzziness was barely appreciated, I didn't report it to the central bureau for astronomical telegrams (CBAT) because to me, it wasn't clear enough if it was a comet.

However, other observatories noticed the diffuse aspect and the object has been recognized as a new non periodic comet.
Below you can see the analysis of the full with at half maximum for the stars in the image, most of them have FWHM = 2.5" which is good seeing for La Cañada, the comet, in red, has a much wider spread function.

Read a doc on how to detect low activity comets looking at the statistics of the FWHM.

References : MPEC 2009-F34, IAUC 9029 (subscribers only)

29P

The comet 29/P in a quiescent state at magnitud 15.59R
Showing an extended diffuse coma and condensed nucleus.
2009 Mar 13, 21:22:52 UT La Cañada (c) Juan Lacruz.

A Larson Sekanina process (below) with a shitf 0.5 pixels and no rotation, does not reveal any feature.

Comet C2007 N3 Lulin

Comet Lulin heading the outer Solar System.
Canon EOS 40D + 200mm F2.8 (c) Juan Lacruz.

A color enhanced rendition of the comet to better show the tail/coma structure of this fine comet, LX200 40cm F10 + STL1001E + RVB filters
Note the dust tail in red and the coma in lights of blue and gree.

M67

STL 1001E + 4000 mm F10, RVB

M42, the nebula in Orion

Canon EOS40D + 200mm F2.8 (c) Juan Lacruz

C/2007 N3 Lulin and 29/P

Bright comet C/200 N3 Lulin, fast moving at 12"/min.
This is a stack of seven images on the comet movement.
Due to the particular geometry of the Sun-Comet-Earth we see the straight gas tail to the South East (bottom left) in contrast with the many jets in the opposite direction North West (Top right).
(c) 2007 Feb 21 La Cañada J.Lacruz

Fascinating centaur object 29/P comet after one of the frequent outburst it undergoes at an Helio centric distance of about 5 Astronomical units.
To the right a Larson Sekanina filtering (just a radial shift of 0.5 pixels) to better show the shell structures.
(c) 2007 Feb 21 La Cañada J.lacruz

2009 CC45

Nueva designación provisional para un objeto débil (mag 20.5V) descubierto desde La Cañada el día 13 de febrero. De momento solo tiene órbita de Väisälä (aproximación circular).

This is the new provisional designation for a faint object (mag 20.5V) discovered from La Cañada on February the 13th. For the moment just a Väisälä orbit (circular approx.).