Comet Hartley (C/103P) and the Double Cluster (Movie)

Copyright Benjamin Gomes-Casseres 2010

This movie shows the movement of the comet over a period of 3h 30m, in 16 seconds (i.e. speeded up 742 times).

How to watch the movie: It is streamed from YouTube in High Definition or lesser qualities. The quality of the movie you will see is initially set automatically by taking into account your Internet connection speed and software. Even so, it can take a few minutes to download the full-resolution HD image. You have two choices:

(1) Click the play button, and then, for a quick and dirty view, set the resolution at the bottom-right of the YouTube bar to the lowest level, usually 360p. This will download rapidly and show you a decent image in a small frame. Wait for the full download and then click replay to see it without interruptions.

(2) If you can wait a few minutes to see the HD version, crank the resolution up to 720p or 1080p and click extreme right button to see it in full-screen format. Stars, colors, and comet structure are a lot clearer in HD at full-screen size. Again, wait for full download to see it without interruptions.

 

 

 

The movie above was captured and compiled as follows:

  • Lexington, Mass. Suburban skies; 50-45F, low humidity and clear; comet high in the sky
  • October 8, 2010, 12:24am to 3.54am
  • Takahashi E160 astrograph (6" F/3.3) with field flattener and CLS Astronomik filter
  • Image scale is about 1.5deg x 2.0deg
  • Takahashi EM-1 mount; unguided; tracking stars
  • Canon 450D (modified by Hap Griffin) at 1600 ASA
  • 99 subs of 120sec each, with about 5sec gaps between exposures (for image download)
  • 20 darks, 20 flats, 20 bias files; stills processed as usual
  • Captured with Mike Unsold's ImagesPlus 4.0; normalized, aligned, digitally developped in ImagesPlus 3.82; cropping in CS4
  • The images were imported into Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 and converted into slideshow with 6 frames per second and then converted to MPEG2 before uploading to YouTube.

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