The night of the 11th of March 2024 was windy but I was able to capture enough data to show the comet 12P/Pons-Brooks crossing the Andromeda and Triangulum constellations from my home village, Prades. As it approaches its perihelium, the comet’s brightness is increasing, reaching now the 6th magnitude. During the imaging session I observed it through binoculars, being able to see part of its tail. I calculate that the comet’s tail can now reach more than 10 degrees in length.
The resulting work is a combination of 3 images: one stacked for the comet (at 135mm), another for the whole landscape (at 24mm), and another one for the landscape captured the following night to get a better image of the ground and the small hermitage shown in the image, Ermita de Sant Roc.
In the image we can also see several other deep sky and Solar System objects, such as Jupiter and Uranus planets, the Double Cluster in Perseus and the Spiral Cluster.
I attach the final result annotated as well as some other useful images about this work (stellarium screenshots and final stacking image of the comet at 135mm).
Thanks for your time on this website.
Image Details
Samyang 135mm lens:
Lights: 202 x 4″ (13′ 28″) 20:10 UTC, March 11th, 2024
4000ISO f/2.0
Calibrated with darks
Sigma Art 24mm lens:
Lights: 2 x10″
4000ISO f/2.0
March 11th and March 12th, 2024
Average Moon phase at 3% (not visible during the captures)
Equipment
Sony A7S + Samyang 135mm + Skywatcher StarAdventurer
Sony A7S + SigmaArt 24mm
No Guiding (and strong winds)
Software
APP (for the comet stacking), PTGUIPro, PIX, TPZ, LR, PS.
Aleix Roig, March 2024
Prades (Tarragona, Catalonia – Spain).