Heres a telescopic view of Comet Wirtanen / 46P on December 6, 2018 with it in the field with several moderately bright stars in Eridanus. A faint ion tail is visible extending upwards at the “10 o’clock” position, which is more or less the comet’s direction of travel. Taken from home in southern Alberta.
The comet was passing through the Clarke Belt this night so some geosynchronous satellite trails appeared in some frames, requiring a median stack mode and some cloning to eliminate.
This is a stack of 3 x 2-minute exposures aligned on the stars, and a stack of 3 x 1-minute at ISO 3200 and 3 x 1-minute at ISO 1600, each set aligned on the moving comet, with those short exposure stacks aligned to the core of the comet to provide a less trailed and not too over-exposed nucleus core.
All with the A&M 105mm apo refractor and Hotech field flattener for f/6.2, and stock Canon 6D MkII. All processing in Photoshop. Diffraction spikes added for photogenic effect with Astronomy Tools actions.
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