After the last visitors left the observatory, I spent some time imaging comet Garradd again. Unfortunately conditions had not improved as compared to last weekend; still a lot of humidity in the air. Dew heaters could not keep up and at the end of the session all my equipment was soaking wet. Managed a couple of decent shots before the dew took over.
As the weather forecast looked rather bad for the rest of the week, we planned an imaging session of comet Garradd on Sunday night. We also wanted to test out some new equipment and modifications to the AstroTrac. Conditions were pretty average; temperatures around freezing, but a lot of humidity in the air caused the sky background to be very light. Not too good for comet photography. The comet was also located in the eastern part of the sky that suffers from severe light pollution from the city of Deventer. Nevertheless, the comet was easily visible in binoculars (8.5×42). We both used our AstroTrac’s with various Canon camera’s and lenses to photograph the comet. I also used the observatories 30 cm Newton telescope for some close-ups of the nucleus. When we packed up our stuff, everything was covered in a thin layer of ice.
