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Hi my dear readers. I wasn’t able to observe Comet Pojmanski yesterday (Feb 27) simply because I was so tired to wake up but here’s an excellent report and photo by a fellow amateur astronomer and ALP member Eric Africa.

Comet Pojmanski by Eric Africa

The report:
I went to my friend’s dark sky site with my primary objective being to gather some blue data for a couple of narrow-band images that I am working on where the targets turned out to have little to no O-III emissions. My friend had also indicated that he may want to use my camera for some additional emission-line information for one of his targets, but he ended up shooting other targets instead. As we discussed possible targets, he mentioned the supernova in M100, and then almost as an afterthought he brought up the comet.

This is the beginning of galaxy season, and I was hoping to use a hi-res setup for some close-ups of galaxies (I wanted to say “nice close-ups”, but I never know how my data will turn out). But I wanted the blue data for my emission-line objects, and brought my wide-field setup instead (can’t easily fit more than one scope in my car). I guess I ended up having the right equipment for the comet!

Oh, yes… neither one of us came prepared for the comet, not having downloaded its ephemeris. Fortunately, my friend could access the Internet with his hi-tech phone, and signed on briefly to get its rough coordinates. Sure enough, when I pointed my scope to that region, the comet showed up.

Location:

A friend’s dark sky site about 50 miles east of Cincinnati. Time: I don’t have the information on me, but I will estimate that I started shooting around 6AM EST (which makes it around 11AM UT).

Equipment:

It was a Takahashi FS102 operating at around f/5.9 with a dedicated f/5.9 reducer. Camera is an SBIG STL-6303. The FOV of this combo is 105 by 158 arc-minutes (around 1-2/3 x 2.5 degrees, if my math is right, and based on Ron Wodaski’s CCD calculator). With the framing I had, the comet stretched about 2/3 of the way along the chip’s narrower frame. That makes the tail visible from this image around a degree or longer.

Related Links:

• My first observation of Comet Pojmanski
• Comet Pojmanski Visible to the Naked Eye
• Comet Pojmanski goes higher and higher
• See it Now: New Comet Brightens Rapidly @ Space.COM
• A Surprise Comet in the Dawn @ Sky and Telescope
• Astronomical League of the Philippines

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