Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy

Post date: Dec 08, 2013 10:22:0 PM

I imaged comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy at 5:52 am CDT (11:52 UT) on December 7, 2013. The image was taken at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Villa Ridge, MO (N38.48485 W90.94141).

Meade ETx-80 F/5 in polar mode

Nikon D5200, 15 seconds, ISO-1600

Very basic image processing produced as good a result as more sophisticated tools:

Cropping and color correction in ViewNX2 ("daylight", to balance down the red level) and conversion to JPG

Windows Live's image editor (Edit->Fine Tune->Adjust contrast) on the JPG image to stretch contrast using the luminescence histogram, increased "Shadows" then ran "noise reduction".