EPOXI: COMET 103P/HARTLEY 2 OBSERVATIONS FROM A WORLDWIDE CAMPAING

ApJ, 734, L1

Quite a black night, La Cañada 2010 Nov 06

Comet 103P Hartley 2 just after the EXPOXY near flyby, as imaged from La Cañada on 2010 Nov the 5th. It illustrates how the perspective changes the way we perceive things. We've just seen the excellent images and video published on the JPL site, where all the detail of the comet surface is apparent, with the many jets spitting a combination of gas and dust to the interplanetary media. In this stacked image taken from La Cañada the aspect of the comet is absolutely different, part of the materials ejected from the comet remain gravitationally bounded to it generating this sort of atmosphere, which is appreciated as a greenish glow and known as the comet's coma. Note how the inner coma is bluer than the outer, which appears redder.

Co-addition of 25 images 1 minute exposure each with a 200mm lens at F2.8, ISO 1250 (c) J. Lacruz

Asteroid Miguel crossing a crowded field of galaxies shows how perspective does not always help our understanding of the world, whilst the asteroid is at a few light minutes from Earth, in our Solar System, the background galaxies are as deep as several millions of light years in the abyssal universe.

The seven sisters shrouded in blue gas.

The Epoxy mission successfully flies by comet 103P Hartley 2

(Image at NASA's JPL)
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103P Hartley 2 2010 Oct 15, La Cañada (J87)

This is an average of 20 exposures of 45 seconds each through a 200mm F2.8 telephoto

103P Hartley 2010 Oct 01

Since the comet was moving fast at nearly four arc seconds per minute I stacked 3 exposures of 30 seconds each to get the comet against a a background of trailed stars.
The field width is 20 arc minutes, north is up and east to the left.
Telescope RCT .40m F10 + CCD
2010 Oct 01 20:38 UT La Cañada J87 J. Lacruz


Comet 103P in a stack of 5 averaged frames of 45 seconds each through a telephoto lens.
Canon EOS 1DIV + EF 200mm F2.8 (@155mm)