Comet 2013UC10 Catalina on early morning of Jan 16 & 17, 2016


Date & Time: Jan 15 2016, from 28:03 to 28:25 JST(+0900)
Composed 8 shots with 3min. exposed
Optical: Meade 25cm(10") Schmidt-Cassegrain with a conversion lens (f=1600mm, F6.3)
with BaaderPlanetarium UV/IR cut filter
Auto-guided with Meade LX200 Equatorial & Pictor 201XT
Digital Camera: Canon EOS 600D (Remodeled)
Location: Ooizumi, Hokuto city, Yamanashi pref.

Camera Settings: Recording format...14bit CCD-RAW, converted to 16bit TIFF(5184×3456)
Sensitivity...ISO3200



Change for 24 hours (f=530mm prime)

Date & Time: (Upper) Jan 15 2016, from 27:07 to 27:52 JST(+0900), 4min.×12shots
(Lower) Jan 16 2016, from 26:12 to 26:57 JST(+0900), 4min.×12shots
Optical: TAKAHASHI 16cm(6.3") epsilon (f=530mm, F3.3)
with IDAS LPS-P2-FF light-pollution suppression filter
Auto-guided with TAKAHASHI JP Equatorial
Digital Camera: Canon EOS 550D (Remodeled)
Location: Ooizumi, Hokuto city, Yamanashi pref.

Camera Settings: Recording format...14bit CCD-RAW, converted to 16bit TIFF(5184×3456)
Sensitivity...ISO1600



Comet Catalina & M101 (Early morning of Jan 17)

Date & Time: Jan 16 2016, from 26:35 to 27:28 JST(+0900)
Mosaic of 2 flames of 4min.×6shots
Optical: BORG 67FL, with a conversion lens (f=324mm, F4.8)
with BaaderPlanetarium Moon&Skyglow filter
Auto-guided with TAKAHASHI JP Equatorial
Digital Camera: Canon EOS 6D (Remodeled)
Location: Ooizumi, Hokuto city, Yamanashi pref.

Camera Settings: Recording format...14bit CCD-RAW, converted to 16bit TIFF(5472×3648)
Device Size...35×24mm, Sensitivity...ISO3200


On Jan 16 to 17, the comet 2013UC10 Catalina had the closest approach to the Earth, positioned between Mizar and Alcaid, handle stars of the Big Dipper. We could appreciate the Rendez-vous with M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy with an elongation of about 2 degrees. The coma has a diameter of about 15 arc minutes and a brightness of 5th or 6th magnitude, you can see a clearly curved dust tail in south and a thin ion tail with a length of over 5 degrees in west direction. Although I could not detect the ion tail with naked eyes, this image shows that the meandered tail has a "notch" structure on early morning of Jan 17.
  The 1st image has been cropped with an equivalent f=1800mm. (View angle: 0.70×0.47°)
  The 2nd image has been cropped with an equivalent f=570mm. (View angle: 2.24×1.33°)
  The 3rd image: View angle: 8.19×4.22°


2013UC10 Catalina on Feb 7, 2016
Spectrum of 2013UC10 Catalina on early morning of Jan 9, 2016

Copyright(c) 2016 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved.
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