Orwell Astronomical Society (Ipswich)
Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), 03 January - 18 February 2015
Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered the comet which bears his name, C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), on 17 August 2014 using a 20 cm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. (It is his fifth comet discovery!) Originally at a very faint magnitude 15, by mid-December of the year, the object had become easily visible in binoculars as it approached its closest to the Earth on 07 January 2015 and subsequently perihelion on 30 January 2015.
Members of OASI captured the following images of the comet during early 2015.
03 Jan 2015, David Murton. Single 30 exposure at ISO 800 taken as the clouds rolled in, also hampered by bright moonlight!
06 Jan 2015, David Murton. Stack of five 30 s exposures at ISO 800. Significantly processed, showing a tail developing.
06 Jan 2015, Martin Cook. First astro-photo of a comet.
10 Jan 2015, Andy Gibbs. Single image taken with Canon 1200D on Meade LX200; minimal processing.
10 Jan 2015, David Murton. Skywatcher 200PDS and Canon 1100D. 200 s at ISO 1600. High level cloud caused blooming around the comet. This is a full frame image showing the size of the comet.
15 Jan 2015, David Murton. William Optics 71ED with focal reducer/field flattener F4.6 and Canon 1100D. Single 300 s exposure with minimal processing.
18 Feb 2015, David Murton. William Optics 71ED with focal reducer/field flattener F4.6 and Canon 1100D. Single exposure with no processing. The brightest star in the image is Φ Persei.
David Murton, Martin Cook, Andy Gibbs