46P/Wirtanen 2018-Dec-24 Chris Schur

With barely an hour before moon up after the fall of darkness, I sqeezed in this set of images through the holes in dense cirrus. I was able to get 10 good and evenly lit 2 minute subframes with the Stellarvue SV80s (second image) totalling 20 minutes and a few good wide angle shots with the 17mm f/4 on a nearby barndoor mount. Here is the results of this effort, the comet is still pretty easy naked eye, and photographed a nice deep teal color. Only a broad fan shaped tail appears above the refractor image below. The comet is approximately 4th magnitude.

With the Stellarvue SV80s, a far deeper exposure
reveals a broad brightening just above the comet and
a more parabolic coma.

Stellarvue SV80s Astrograph at f/4.7
20 mins total integration time.

Location: Payson, Arizona
Elevation: 5150 ft.
Sky: Seeing 7/10, Transparency 5/10
Outside Temperature: 30F
Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2

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