Topic: Astropic of the week

[Simon]

I found this via Brian May's website. 



He comments:

LULIN LATEST - THIS HAS TO BE THE BEST COMET PHOTOGRAPH I HAVE EVER SEEN

The latest from Prof Greg Parker and Noel Carboni ...

This is so beautiful, I could hardly believe it when I first saw it ...

Comets move quite quickly against the star background ... and they are pretty faint, so they need long time exposures to capture them. So almost every picture you ever saw of a comet either had the comet itself blurred by motion, ot the comet was sharp, but seen against a background of star streaks.

Well, Parker and Carboni have so skilfully processed their stack of many images taken in quick succession, that they have got the absolute best of both worlds ... breathtakingly sharp points for stars, and a perfectly beautiful comet, in awesome clarity. You can also see some tiny (to us) galaxies just behind the nucleus of comet Lulin, in the bright part of the tail. Amazing. More info here ... http://www.astronomy2009.co.uk/

Cheers
Bri

[sam]

tis cool, shame it is far too light polluted here in brum to see the thing

[Clive]

I also failed to see it but the photos reveal it was a lovely object.  Thanks Simon.