Comet 12P (Pons-Brooks)

[Ross Wilkinson]

This is an interesting comet, with a period of 71 years (similar to 1P/Halley). It was recorded by Chinese & European observers in in 1385 and in 1457, but was officially "discovered" by Jean-Louis Pons in 1812 and then William Brooks in 1884.

It comes to perihelion again next April, but has exhibited several outbursts in recent months, brightening by several magnitudes each time.

Following the July outburst, I had a look for it in August, but by then it had faded again and was probably around 14th magnitude, so I really struggled to detect anything.

But there was another outburst on 14-Nov bringing it up to 9th magnitude, so last night I had no problems capturing it:

That's a stack of 78x 1-minute exposures from my Mx716 camera on the C8 operating at f/4.5.

[Ross Wilkinson]

As I mentioned during our Zoom meeting on 5th March, I had set up my imaging system for this comet, which has now reached 6th magnitude, with a well-condensed coma and a tail.

But it was low down in the NW sky (in Andromeda), so I wasn't surprised when the first image which appeared on the back of my camera soon after 7pm showed some "local clutter" in the form of a neighbours' TV aerial:

Nonetheless, I left the system running during our meeting and on later review found that 39 of my frames had no obstructions and could be used for later processing. 

I stopped the imaging run around 8:30, when yet another chimney came into view:

But at least this gave me a handy sighter to point my 15x70 binoculars, through which I could see the comet quite easily.

Incidentally, this is the 22nd comet which I've managed to see visually (nineteen of which have been in the last 22 years).

This is the result of stacking my 39x 30-sec exposures from the Sony NEX5 camera on the back of my 80mm refractor, operating at f/4.8:

Sadly, not enough contrast in the bright sky to show much of its tail.

A German amateur had managed a much better picture a few days earlier: https://fg-kometen.vdsastro.de/pix/12P/12P_4_03032024.htm