73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 2022-Nov-23 Dan Bartlett

73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann
A difficult target indeed where I had to crop out the blurred mountain ridge of Carson Peak, June Lake California. I had to attempt this comet since I've seen some S.Hemi Obsy images which are impressive. 24 x 90 sec stacked from my usual backyard setup. As I watched the evening subs appear on the computer screen I was surprised at the lack of central condensation of the nuclear region. Even the CometAlignment process in PixInsight could not hone in on the area. Is this comet near the end of its life? Very much reminded me of C/2020 F8 SWAN and C/2019 Y4 ATLAS as they disintegrated. My meager equipment and 73P's super low altitude barely hints at any real thoughts of this comet's health. Individual subs shows a ghost-like appearance.

Observational details:
Backyard setup
scope: C11 RASA D = 279mm; fl =618mm; F# 2.2
camera: asi 2600mcP
exposure: 24 x90 sec
Seeing: 4/5
Transparency: 6/10
Observer: DEBartlett
Location: June Lake, California, USA

Image info:
Projection ............... Gnomonic
Projection origin ........ [943.079931 937.949150] px -> [RA: 21 28 26.757 Dec: -26 47 25.85]
Resolution ............... 2.512 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. 0.964 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Observation start time ... 2022-11-24 03:46:53 UTC
Observation end time ..... 2022-11-24 03:48:23 UTC
Geodetic coordinates ..... 119 04 46 W 37 46 51 N 2360 m
Focal distance ........... 617.65 mm
Pixel size ............... 7.52 um
Field of view ............ 1d 18' 57.6" x 1d 18' 32.5"
Image center ............. RA: 21 28 26.757 Dec: -26 47 25.85 ex: -0.000048 px ey: -0.000005 px
Image bounds:
top-left .............. RA: 21 31 25.806 Dec: -26 08 41.40 ex: +0.000004 px ey: -0.000465 px
top-right ............. RA: 21 25 34.179 Dec: -26 07 23.80 ex: +0.000132 px ey: -0.000226 px
bottom-left ........... RA: 21 31 21.385 Dec: -27 27 15.90 ex: -0.000441 px ey: +0.000726 px
bottom-right .......... RA: 21 25 25.651 Dec: -27 25 56.94 ex: +0.000361 px ey: +0.002027 px

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