Collecting  Photons

March 9, 1997

Early in that morning Hale Bopp flew by the Milky Way in Cygnus. The prominent red nebulosity on the right are the NGC 7000 and g Cygni complex. Two frames of the comet and four of the nebula were shot, digitally processed, over imposed and composed to obtain the final image. Canon F1, Kodak P1600 (pushed to 1600 ISO), 100 mm f 2.8, 6' exposure for each frame. 1.46 MB jpg

March 21, 1997

Later in the month the comet descended lower and lower in the morning sky. Overlay of two frames. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ISO), 300 mm f 4.0, 8'.

A wide field view as the first light was breaking. The tiny fuzzy spot on the lower left corner is the Andromeda galaxy. Overlay of two frames of 30 and 60 sec exposure. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 50 mm f 1.8. The greenish light on the lower left corner comes from the lights of the town of Lucca. .33 MB jpg Finder chart

March 27, 1997

Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 300 mm f 4, two 8 mn exposure.

April 1, 1997

On April Fools Day I drove for an hour to what I thought was going to be a great observing spot. The day was extremely clear and the weather was fine until I settled up the telescope. Suddenly big grey clouds came from the south, and stopped right over the comet. I drove back north like a mad man, while the comet was growing brighter and brighter just outside of the car windows. When I finally arrived at location B I had time for a single exposure before of more clouds. The yellow light is due to the reflections of the city lights on the comet devouring clouds. One plane and one bright satellite left trace of their passage. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 100 mm f 2.8, 4'. .44 MB jpg.

April 2, 1997

I shot two 60" exposures separated by only a few minutes at the primary focus of my C8. I thought that the proper motion of the comet was not going to show but I was completely wrong. The two frames were overimposed by aligning the density profiles of the coma, and so each star appears doubled. The images were processed as grayscales and heavily unsharp filtered to enhance the jets coming out of the coma. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 2000 mm f 10. .15 MB jpg.

April 5, 1997

We drove for over two hours to an amazing sunset that was soon killed by the fog moving on from the sea. With the fog came a chilly wind that bumped the telescope all over the places, while I frantically tried to get the only exposure of the evening. This explains the irregular shape of the star images. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 800 ASA), 300 mm f 4.0, 8 mn exposure. .35 MB jpg.

April 7, 1997

Kodak P1600 (pushed at 800 ASA), 100 mm f 4.0, 14 mn exposure. .30 MB jpg.