C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) 2023-Aug-19 Dan Bartlett

More Horizon Time, Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) Swings By the Clown Face Planetary Nebula, 2023-08-19. A short road trip across the lake for a better horizon allowing for this capture of 36 minutes of stacking. Had to set up a RASA 11 and have the mount memorize the sky prior to the 4:oo am start imaging time. Of course not everything went as planned (auto focuser failure). However the skies were Bortle 1 at altitude and the Zodiacal Light blasting through Gemini seem to interfere with my imaging ADU.

The brilliant blue green 9th magnitude planetary nebula, the Eskimo nebula (aka the Clown Face nebula NGC2392 or Caldwell 39)lies less than a 1/3 degree from the comet's nucleus. The 620mm focal length vs the recent 730mm has a wider field and hence not as "zoomed" in as previous images I've taken of comet Nishimura.

Observational details:
Backyard setup
scope: RASA11 D = 279mm; fl =620mm; F# 2.2
camera: asi 2600mcP
exposure: 72 x30 sec
Seeing: 4/5
Transparency: 9.5/10
Observer: DEBartlett
Location: June Lake, California, USA


Image Info (all but the cropped closeup)
WCS transformation ....... Linear
Projection ............... Gnomonic
Projection origin ........ [1856.012974 962.002521] px -> [RA: 7 27 23.026 Dec: +20 38 30.47]
Resolution ............... 1.675 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. -4.085 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Observation start time ... 2023-08-19 11:53:03 UTC
Observation end time ..... 2023-08-19 11:53:33 UTC
Geodetic coordinates ..... 119 04 46 W 37 46 51 N 2360 m
Focal distance ........... 617.36 mm
Pixel size ............... 5.01 um
Field of view ............ 1d 43' 38.4" x 53' 43.1"
Image center ............. RA: 7 27 23.028 Dec: +20 38 30.47
Image bounds:
top-left .............. RA: 7 30 56.391 Dec: +21 08 47.75
top-right ............. RA: 7 23 33.120 Dec: +21 01 28.85
bottom-left ........... RA: 7 31 11.773 Dec: +20 15 13.17
bottom-right .......... RA: 7 23 51.082 Dec: +20 07 56.92

ASTROBIN download can be found here.