Change of ion tail in two hours(Dec 18, 2004)


Date & Time: Dec 18, 2004, times are displayed in image
4shots composed with 4min. exp.(left), 4shots composed with 5min. exp.(right)
Optical: Meade 25cm(10") Schmidt-Cassegrain with conversion lens (f=1600mm, F6.3)
Auto-guided with Meade LX200 Equatorial & Pictor 201XT
Digital Camera: Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro
Location: Ooizumi, Hokuto city, Yamanashi pref.

Camera Settings: Recording Format...12bit CCD-RAW, converted to 16bit TIFF(3024×2016)
CCD Sensitivity...ISO1600, White Balance...Auto

Rotational-Gradient processed with Stellaimage 4


This close-up image of the coma of comet Machholz shows you the change of ion tail during two hours. I have emphasized indistinct wavy structures of ion tail with a special process of "rotational-gradient".
You can see in left image, which has been captured at 22:00, an ion tail stretched from center of coma. However this feature seems quite changed two hours later at 24:00, the tail looks stretched from off-center of coma. It's considered that the change has occurred by the rotation of coma, to say, the gush position of ion tail has moved during the interval of two shots. And this set of pictures shows you the distribution and width of tail has fairly changed in only two hours.


Machholz on Dec 30, 2004
Machholz on Dec 17, 2004

Copyright(c) 2004 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved.
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