LINEAR T7/2002

Naked Eye Comet - May 2004 - Magnitude 1

This comet is a rather new one found by the LINEAR project in 2002. This comet appeared rather faint toward the end of 2003 as it approached the sun. For the last couple of months, Comet Linear T7 reappeared but has only been visible in Southern skies. This comet is supposed to reappear above the southwest horizon at the end of May for northern sky viewers. Estimates are for it to be a magnitude 1 comet at this time. The images below will show the progress of this comet.

Comet LINEAR T7/2002 - December 29, 2003

At this time of this shot in late December, 2003, the comet had just passed M33 in Triangulum and was shining at Mag 8.3.

Location: Ballauer Observatory near Azle, Texas
Seeing: 9/10 (1.2 FWHM)
Transparency: 4/10
Equipment: Tak 106 @ f/5, Celestron CGE mount
Camera: SBIG ST-7E with CFW-8a filter wheel, standard SBIG filters
Date: December 29, 2003
Exposure Info: LRGB image (2x6 min L, 1 x 2 min R, 1 x 2 min G, 1 x 2 min B) binned 1x1.
Processing: MaxIm (Gradient removal, dark subtract, align and combine), Photoshop 7 (Levels, Curves, Blur/sharpen, and final composite)

Other info: Comets move fast. I guided the composite images on the background stars so I had to take the images quickly to keep the Comet from blurring. I compensated for the shorter blue exposure by weighting it differently in MaxIm and color balancing in PS7. I've got several 2 minute images of T7 in sequence and would like to create a short AVI of them.