Comet 103P/Hartley, Fall 2010

(click image to view & discuss)	Comet 103P/Hartley animation, evening Oct. 6, 2010 The images in this animation were taken using the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics MicroObservatory remote-controlled telescope in Arizona and processed using the MicroObservatory Image 2.1 software.  The comet is shown wending its way across the constellation Perseus.  The image scale is about 1 degree from left to right. Submitted by Robert Halstead on 10/07/2010 10:51:16
(click image to view & discuss)	Apparent motion due to parallax The two images in this animation were taken at exactly the same time (2010-Oct-08, 0600 UTC), one from the remotely controlled telescope in Cambridge, MA, and the other from the remotely controlled telescope in Arizona.  You can see the difference in the comet's apparent position from the two locations due to parallax.  The apparent motion is about 38 arcseconds.  Using 2600 miles as an approximate figure for the distance between the locations gives the comet's estimated distance as 14.1 million miles -- pretty close to the actual distance of 13.9 million miles at the time of these observations.  Thanks to Frank Sienkiewicz of the Center for Astrophysics for scheduling the taking of the two images used in this animation. Submitted by Robert Halstead on 10/08/2010 22:38:03
(click image to view & discuss)	Comet 103P/Hartley animation, evening Oct. 7, 2010 The nine frames in this animation were taken at 1-hour intervals and show the comet moving nearly a degree during the course of the animation.  They were taken using the Center for Astrophysics remotely controlled MicroObservatory telescope in Amado, Arizona. Submitted by Robert Halstead on 10/08/2010 22:42:44
(click image to view & discuss)	Stacked image to get longer exposure This image was created by stacking nine 60-second exposures that were made over the course of a 30-minute period.  The comet is moving through the sky quickly enough that aligning the comet in all the images causes the star images to spread out in a line.  With this view, we can see just a hint of a tail extending toward the bottom right, but it's pretty faint.  These exposures were taken during the early morning hours of October 12, 2010, using the Center for Astrophysics MicroObservatory remote-controlled telescope in Amado, Arizona. Submitted by Robert Halstead on 10/12/2010 20:35:42