This is a composite image made by adding four 10 minute exposures and one two minute exposure.  During the exposures the STAR 2000  controlled my 8" LX 200 and tracked on the comet nucleus.  This caused the stars in the image to trail as the telescope followed the comet.  The tracking was fully automatic and I made manual no tracking corrections during the exposures.   You can see trails stars made as four long dashes (10 min exposures) plus one shorter one (2 minute exposure).  The two minute exposure was taken at 10:02 UT.  There is not much of a tail visible in this image, but the coma does spread out slightly to the right.  The calculated magnitude of the comet was 7.1 when the image was taken.  The brighter stars in the image are magnitude 10.2.   The image size is 14.5 x 10.6 arc min.     Click here to go back.