13P/Olbers 2024-Jun-04 Dan Bartlett

_13P_Olbers_C14Hyperstar_asi2600mcP_42x30sec_2024_06_04_214526PDT_JuneLake_California_USA_DEBartlett

Surprises All Around! Comet 13P/Olbers Showing Disconnect, Brightening, Colorful and Wonderfully Clear Night, June 4, 2024

Great skies for once as 13P/ Olbers was captured and stacked from 42 x 30 seconds of subframes. Although I've had a week long of imaging nights, the skies were average pointing towards the NW location of 13P as twilight faded. I skipped imaging the past two nights as the weather prevented. Leading me to last night, the subs were impressive and the HFR on SGP danced around 3.7 compared to the 5-6 range of last week (HFR at best for this setup can be around 2.5).

Processing the data showed cometary vibrant color right from the initially aligned and stacked comet image. Also a surprise disconnect could easily be seen. Wish I had imaged the previous night to see any similar evolvement. The sky conditions also showed an obvious brightening and additional details in the plasma tail not yet seen to date.

Moon will shortly appear on the scene by the end of this week. I hope to catch a few more nights, hopefully above average, prior to solar system plane crossing on ~ June 17. Excitedly, perihelion is still yet to on June 30th and we will still be closing in until July 20th of this year.


Full Resolution Image:
https://astrob.in/szs4d5/B/

Backyard setup
scope: C14 HyperStar fl728mm D356mm
exposure: 42 x 30 sec
Seeing: 3.5/5
Transparency 9/10
Observer: DEBartlett
Place: June Lake_California USA

Image Info (Processed ):
Projection ............... Gnomonic
Projection origin ........ [1500.113037 982.883866] px -> [RA: 6 32 12.476 Dec: +38 36 48.53]
Resolution ............... 2.133 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. -4.101 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Observation start time ... 2024-06-05 04:25:33 UTC
Observation end time ..... 2024-06-05 04:54:15 UTC
Geodetic coordinates ..... 119 04 46 W 37 46 51 N 2360 m
Focal distance ........... 727.29 mm
Pixel size ............... 7.52 um
Field of view ............ 1d 46' 38.2" x 1d 9' 53.0"
Image center ............. RA: 6 32 12.476 Dec: +38 36 48.53 ex: -0.009628 px ey: -0.102485 px
Image bounds:
top-left .............. RA: 6 36 34.175 Dec: +39 15 12.54 ex: -1.118246 px ey: -1.128530 px
top-right ............. RA: 6 27 26.329 Dec: +39 07 10.56 ex: +2.131679 px ey: -1.268305 px
bottom-left ........... RA: 6 36 54.691 Dec: +38 05 39.88 ex: -1.277037 px ey: +0.485362 px
bottom-right .......... RA: 6 27 55.266 Dec: +37 57 44.19 ex: +1.195979 px ey: +0.471742 px