They're Twins, you know.....

[RB astro]

Ok, time to share another one of my astro images.
I love this one.

Back in 2006 I heard that a comet broke up into multiple pieces and it was a sight not to be missed.
Intrigued, I set up my gear that night hoping to catch a glimpse.
I knew roughly where it was but it very, very faint and with the help of my green laser mounted on my scope I honed in to my target.
I could see them individually in my big scope but needed a wider field of view (FOV) so I used my Canon EF 200mm L lens which was also mounted on my scope to image the comets.
What greeted me left me speechless and I'm still in amazement to this day, every time I look at this image.

The comet head had broken up into two distinct bodies, both travelling in unison and displaying beautiful tails.

For me it was a once in a lifetime shot.

Hope you enjoy.

RB

Twin Comet C-73P Schwassmann-Wachmann (Fragments B & C) taken on 31st May, 2006. Canon 20Da, EF 200mm L at
f/3.5 , ISO 1600 , total exposure time approx 20 minutes.

 

[stephen777]

Wow, that is one epic picture!

 

[Pman]

Wow, thanks for sharing that shot. +REP

 

[BowtieGuy]

Beautiful shot RB!
Thanks for sharing the photo and description; definitely a once in a lifetime view!
:kewlpics: +rep

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi,
OMG awesome photo thank you for share such a wonderful event in the sky.
Tour the best buddy

Rich

 

[RedCowboy]

That's a fantastic shot. :beer:

 

[RB astro]

Stephen, Pman, Bowtieguy, Lifetime, RedCowboy, Olympus Mons many thanks for the nice compliments and +reps.
I'm so glad you like the image.
It received quite a bit of attention and got published in a magazine and around the net.

Cheers.
RB

 

[Abean95]

Truly amazing photo! I am currently taking an astronomy class and I find these type of photos to be absolutely astonishing. Thanks for sharing RB astro. :thanks:

 

[RedCowboy]

Sorry it won't let me rep you yet, your pic is deserving of a rep :gj:

It's been a while since I went to the mountains where you can see all the stars, I'm too close 12 miles from Atlanta but on a clear night I can see a good bit, especially if I get out my cheap optics, but not like 50 miles north at my sisters and 100 miles north it's amazing.

I found this time lapse, supposedly a lot of city dwellers have never seen the milky way.

 

[RB astro]

Truly amazing photo! I am currently taking an astronomy class and I find these type of photos to be absolutely astonishing. Thanks for sharing RB astro. :thanks:

Many thanks Abean95, wow astronomy class, now that would be awesome, I'd love to take a class.
I'll post more photos soon.

It's been a while since I went to the mountains where you can see all the stars, I'm too close 12 miles from Atlanta but on a clear night I can see a good bit, especially if I get out my cheap optics, but not like 50 miles north at my sisters and 100 miles north it's amazing.

I found this time lapse, supposedly a lot of city dwellers have never seen the milky way.

I love timelapse, that's an awesome clip RedCowBoy !
Yep unfortunately a lot of people miss out due to the light pollution of our big cities.

I'm lucky that I'm out of the big city lights somewhat and can see the MWay nicely.

He's a shot I posted a while back of my 445nm blue laser, I called it - "The Battle of the Bulge"

 

[Pi R Squared]

That last photo is too large and makes the thread almost unusable on a tablet. Anyway great photos. Anyone who gets a chance to see a comet, don't miss your chance, they don't come around very often. I remember when Schoemaker Levy 9 broke up and collided with Jupiter, one of the fragments left a spot larger than the earth. I remember seeing the comet Hyakutake in 1996, easily visible with the naked eye, but a few weeks or months later in 1997 Hal Bopp was the most spectacular comet in modern times. Those of you too young to remember or to have seen it, Google Hale Bopp and look at the images and see how large it was in the night sky, I hope you all get to see such a thing, although I guess comets are best viewed from a distance. I need to buy a telescope.

Alan

 

[RB astro]

That last photo is too large and makes the thread almost unusable on a tablet.
Alan

Thanks Alan, I've re-sized it.
Yes there have been some awesome comets come through, those you mentioned I've missed but I did get to see the wonderful Comet McNaught.

That was unforgettable for me.
Got some great shots of that one.

 

[GSS]

RBastro, let me be another to compliment you on an awesome pic, there just cant be many people who ever witnessed something so amazing. Years and years ago I believe I saw what is a shooting star with the naked eye. It happened so fast that I barely even remember it. It just looked like a star that just fell a little to the left an vanished. This was a cold night and in the city. I didnt think to look into any news about it and at the time there was no internet. What could I have possibly seen? Was it a shooting star or is that just a convenient name mabey regarding some space debris?

 

[RB astro]

RBastro, let me be another to compliment you on an awesome pic, there just cant be many people who ever witnessed something so amazing. Years and years ago I believe I saw what is a shooting star with the naked eye. It happened so fast that I barely even remember it. It just looked like a star that just fell a little to the left an vanished. This was a cold night and in the city. I didnt think to look into any news about it and at the time there was no internet. What could I have possibly seen? Was it a shooting star or is that just a convenient name mabey regarding some space debris?

Thank you GSS.
Yes I'd say most probably it was "a shooting/falling star", or it's proper term, a meteor.
They're awesome to watch, very quick, sometimes very bright, they're space rocks of varying size from pebbles to bigger than a basketball.

Some are big enough that they don't fully burn up in our atmosphere and make it to the ground, they're called a meteorite.

The comet I took a photo of in this thread is different from meteors.
Comets are outside our atmosphere and are much bigger.
They're ice & rock and are heated by our sun which causes them to release gases giving them a long tail.
Visually they move much slower from our perspective because they're much further away, although they are traveling very fast.
When we're looking at them for our point of view they seem stationary and seem to move small distances each night.
This photo was a long exposure of 20 minutes, while my telescope mount was tracking it.

So hope that explains the difference between meteors, meteorites and comets.

 

[GSS]

Thanks astro, for the astromany lesson, so it was a meteor most likely, its weird it happened so fast it kinda feels like a dream. How can I ask this without sounding stupid, the light we see from a star has traveled light years to as we see it now, if a star were to fall (dont know if thats possible) would we see it like a meteor falling? Did I make any sense

 

[RB astro]

Thanks astro, for the astromany lesson, so it was a meteor most likely, its weird it happened so fast it kinda feels like a dream. How can I ask this without sounding stupid, the light we see from a star has traveled light years to as we see it now, if a star were to fall (dont know if thats possible) would we see it like a meteor falling? Did I make any sense

Yes your question makes sense and no question is stupid.
The term falling star is miss leading and leads to confusion.
Stars are huge and they don't fall.
Our sun is a star and if you were to put our earth in it, it would fit 1.3 million earths, that's huge.
Our sun is considered to be on the small size compared to other stars.

So what we see up in the sky are stars, so big that the earth would disappear in front of them. It's just that they're so far away that they look like point size dots.

So the falling stars (meteors) we see falling are very small in comparison, from pebble size to boulder size but they are close to us, within our atmosphere.
Now because they're travelling (falling) so fast through our atmosphere they start to burn because of friction, just like when the shuttle heats up on re-entry.
The burning flash is the meteor burning as it falls through the atmosphere so it leaves a trail/tail but this happens very fast, within seconds.
Hence why in the old days they called them "falling/shooting stars" because they look like a star but appear to be falling.

:yh: