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Paul Macklin
Bloomington, IN USA
11/03/2021
06:00 am

Equipment Details:

Scope: William Optics ZenithStar 61ii (61mm APO doublet)
Extra: W.O. Flat61A flattener
Filter: Optolong L-Pro
Camera: asi533mc pro
Guided scope: ZWO 30 mm f/4
Guide cam: asi120mm mini
ZWO ASIAIR plus
ZWO EAF
AstroZap dew heaters
iOptron cem26 mount

Post-processing Details:

Stacked 40 x 3 min exposures using the special "comet" registration mode in Astro Pixel Processor.
30 flats, 30 dark flats, 60 bias frames
(2 hours total integration time)
Auto-tone, Auto-contract, auto-brightness in photoshop
Light denoising in Topaz
Clone/Stamp to remove a few dead pixels missed in this beta algorithm in APP

Image Details:

This is a snapshot of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) on November 3, 2021, taken using a small 60mm APO doublet.

I captured and integrated two 60 minute sequences of 3 minute exposures to show the comet's motion against the star field near URSA Major.

This is my second test on the comet, intended in part to test feasibility for amateur-grade small scopes.