Lemmon and Swan

[Al Francis]

Dusted off the Seestar S50 last night here in Middletown. I have a great western view of South Mountain but it was cloudy in the west at sunset. The beauty of the S50 is that I could sit in the house and watch the baseball game while monitoring the tablet for the clouds to clear. 

Had me reminiscing about a frigid cold night in March of 1996, sitting outside with an Ultima Mount Controller in hand, staring at a crosshair reticle through a Celestron 8" SCT, equipped with a piggy-backed Canon OM-1 with a 50mm lens, and loaded with Kodak ASA 400 film. Hours upon hours of freezing my butt off in the hopes of capturing a keeper of Comet Hyakutake.

The good old days? Nah, I'll take today's technology. 

Al

[Stephen Gauss]

I, too, can sit in the house with my tablet connected remotely to the laptop running the C-14 outside. But I prefer to sit under the stars.

C2025 A6 last night when the clouds parted.

Stephen Gauss

Dusted off the Seestar S50 last night here in Middletown. I have a great western view of South Mountain but it was cloudy in the west at sunset. The beauty of the S50 is that I could sit in the house and watch the baseball game while monitoring the tablet for the clouds to clear.Â

Had me reminiscing about a frigid cold night in March of 1996, sitting outside with an Ultima Mount Controller in hand, staring at a crosshair reticle through a Celestron 8" SCT, equipped with a piggy-backed Canon OM-1 with a 50mm lens, and loaded with Kodak ASA 400 film. Hours upon hours of freezing my butt off in the hopes of capturing a keeper of Comet Hyakutake.

The good old days? Nah, I'll take today's technology.Â

Al

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[David Glasser]

I’m with you both on the convenience of a remote setup!

Stephen, how do you get a crisp image of both the comet and the background stars with long exposures or stacking when the comet is moving at a different rate than the stars?

David

[Stephen Gauss]

With a 14-inch SCT at f/2 the exposures are only 8 seconds and the image is 10 exposures stacked. Lemmon is not moving very fast. I have some with longer exposures where the star motion is noticeable. The nucleus and coma are well defined, so easy to align on.
Comet SWAN is moving faster.

Stephen Gauss

I’m with you both on the convenience of a remote setup!

Stephen, how do you get a crisp image of both the comet and the background stars with long exposures or stacking when the comet is moving at a different rate than the stars?

David

On Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 4:21:30 PM UTC-4 Stephen Gauss wrote:

I, too, can sit in the house with my tablet connected remotely to the laptop running the C-14 outside. But I prefer to sit under the stars.

C2025 A6 last night when the clouds parted.

Stephen Gauss

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[Victor Sanchez]

Really nice photo, Steve!

Here's my go at comet Lemmon...  I got this from 55 exposures of 45 seconds each with a Nikon 200 mm lens and an ASI 294 camera on Thursday, the 23rd.  Unlike Steve, I am at f5.6 and needed the longer exposures.  

  The reason I have round stars and a comet that's not smeared, is that I processed the data using the PixInsight CometAlignment script which basically does two separate integrations... one aligned on the comet head, and another aligned using the stars, which are then combined.

 I took the data from the Howard Nature Conservancy (on Rt 99) grounds, which has a really nice western horizon - but unfortunately has terrible light pollution - so I had to process and stretch the heck out of it to get the comet to come out.  Side note: the Conservancy will be installing a gate in the next month or two as a result of some vandalism, we are talking to them about how HAL might still periodically get access to their grounds.  Regardless, I'm likely going to try to find a darker spot for the next comet.

 Regards,

Victor

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From: howar...@googlegroups.com <howar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Stephen Gauss <as...@chesabay.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2025 3:30 PM
To: David Glasser <d...@comcast.net>; Howard Astronomical League <howar...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [howardastro] Lemmon and Swan

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[John Nagy]

You typically stack twice. Traditional star stack, then remove the comet, then do a comet head stack, then remove the stars from the comet stack, recombine the two. Best of both worlds.

There are several programs that can do the comet stacking now.

John

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[David Glasser]

That’s another nice image!

 

I haven’t invested in PixInsight. Still taking baby steps with the Seestar, Siril, and GraXpert.

 

 

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[John Nagy]

C14 with Hyperstar... nice!

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[David Glasser]

That shows the advantage of a 14” scope at f/2.

[Astral Voices]

That's a shame about the gate...Sigh..mindless vandalism.

Guess I'll just have to ride my bike.

Candide

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[Astral Voices]

Killer photos!  Beautiful.

Candide - Ellicott City

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[Astral Voices]

Oh my God...fantastic John.

On 10/25/2025 8:11 PM, John Nagy wrote:

I'd like to throw my Lemmon pic into the mix. Not as good as others but I'm happy. Imaging comets is hard!

John

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[John Nagy]

I'd like to throw my Lemmon pic into the mix. Not as good as others but I'm happy. Imaging comets is hard!

John

On Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 8:09 PM Astral Voices <astral...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Janet Ho]

Really nice photos, all of you. I am new to the group and a beginner to stargazing but am always interested in celestial events. Started "chasing" the two comets when they were first announced on the news last week but of course saw nothing because  I don't have any proper equipment. The most powerful binoculars I have are 8x42. Read that I would need 10x50. Any recommendations would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

Janet

 

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[David Stein]

Janet,

8x42 binoculars are fine, you don't need 10x50!  Comet SWAN was not easy to see from around here in binoculars if you didn't know exactly where to look, and Comet Lemmon was very low in the sky when it got dark, so it might have been behind trees or buildings when you were looking for it.  Your equipment is just fine, if you come to one of our public star parties on a clear night we can help you see some objects in the night sky.  The Andromeda Galaxy is very well placed right now and is a great object in binoculars. Our next public star party is this coming Saturday, November 1.

David

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[David Glasser]

Hi Janet,

Binoculars are a great way to start and to learn the sky, but as you’ve seen they are limited to bright-ish objects. There are basically 2 ways to see the fainter stuff: a) more aperture, or b) stacking images using a tracking mount and a camera.

In recent years a whole new category of small, relatively inexpensive, robotic scopes have become available that are capable of tracking those faint celestial objects and automatically stacking the images for display in real time on a tablet or phone or for saving. They range in cost from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. 

I have a ZWO Seestar S50, as do a number of other HAL members. It works really well as an intro to electronically assisted astronomy (EAA) and astrophotography. They usually cost $500-550 but I see a screaming deal on Amazon right now for $308:

https://www.amazon.com/ZWO-Seestar-S50-Telescope-Experienced/dp/B0D97JDB49

The learning curve isn’t too steep and I’m sure other members would be happy to help with questions if you decode to take the plunge.

David Glasser

On Oct 26, 2025, at 8:28 AM, Janet Ho <janet.h...@gmail.com> wrote:



[David Glasser]

I'm having second thoughts about that link I posted to a discounted Seestar.

Both sold by and ships from a company I have never heard of, and not-so-great reviews.
Meaning if there is a problem, you have to deal with the company that sold it. No backup from Amazon.

Caveat emptor.

David G

[Janet Ho]

Thank you all for the recommendations and comments. In terms of knowing where to look, I used the Big Dipper as the marker and looked to the left of it for Comet Lemmon. But as David Stein pointed out, the comet must have fallen behind the tree line by the time I looked, which was around 9 or 10 pm on both 22nd and 23rd. I plan to attend the public star party this Saturday. Hope to meet you all and see the equipment that you have. I have never used a telescope to look at the sky. I miss the fantastic view of Comet Hale-Bopp back in the late 90s--it was right in front of us as my friend and I were driving in the middle of nowhere in CA to Death Valley.

Janet

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[Stephen Gauss]

From last night. It's now a long way  from the Big Dipper.

From my  phone.

Stephen Gauss

Thank you all for the recommendations and comments. In terms of knowing where to look, I used the Big Dipper as the marker and looked to the left of it for Comet Lemmon. But as David Stein pointed out, the comet must have fallen behind the tree line by the time I looked, which was around 9 or 10 pm on both 22nd and 23rd. I plan to attend the public star party this Saturday. Hope to meet you all and see the equipment that you have. I have never used a telescope to look at the sky. I miss the fantastic view of Comet Hale-Bopp back in the late 90s--it was right in front of us as my friend and I were driving in the middle of nowhere in CA to Death Valley.

Janet

On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 2:27 PM 'David Glasser' via Howard Astronomical League < howar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I'm having second thoughts about that link I posted to a discounted Seestar.

Both sold by and ships from a company I have never heard of, and not-so-great reviews.

Meaning if there is a problem, you have to deal with the company that sold it. No backup from Amazon.

Caveat emptor.

David G

On Sunday, October 26, 2025 at 11:35:26 AM UTC-4 David Glasser wrote:

Hi Janet,

Binoculars are a great way to start and to learn the sky, but as you’ve seen they are limited to bright-ish objects. There are basically 2 ways to see the fainter stuff: a) more aperture, or b) stacking images using a tracking mount and a camera.

In recent years a whole new category of small, relatively inexpensive, robotic scopes have become available that are capable of tracking those faint celestial objects and automatically stacking the images for display in real time on a tablet or phone or for saving. They range in cost from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.Â

I have a ZWO Seestar S50, as do a number of other HAL members. It works really well as an intro to electronically assisted astronomy (EAA) and astrophotography. They usually cost $500-550 but I see a screaming deal on Amazon right now for $308:

https://www.amazon.com/ZWO-Seestar-S50-Telescope-Experienced/dp/B0D97JDB49

The learning curve isn’t too steep and I’m sure other members would be happy to help with questions if you decode to take the plunge.

David Glasser

On Oct 26, 2025, at 8:28 AM, Janet Ho <janet.h...@gmail.com> wrote:



Really nice photos, all of you. I am new to the group and a beginner to stargazing but am always interested in celestial events. Started "chasing" the two comets when they were first announced on the news last week but of course saw nothing because  I don't have any proper equipment. The most powerful binoculars I have are 8x42. Read that I would need 10x50. Any recommendations would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

Janet

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[Astral Voices]

HI Janet,

Can it be seen at the conservancy ?    Want to go ride my bike out tonight and try and look!

Candide

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[Janet Ho]

Thanks, Stephen. Where is this taken at? 

Janet

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[Janet Ho]

Hi Candide,

I am not sure because I didn't go there. Hopefully some other members can answer your question.

Janet