Comet Tempel July 4, 2005


These are animations I made of Comet Tempel during the deep impact mission of July 4, 2005. I made them hoping to see the comet brighten when the spacecraft hit it. It's hard to see any changes in my animations. Each frame in each animation was processed exactly the same. The comet was low in the Southern horizon from where I was, and you can see the sky brighten as the comet approaches the horizon.





Comet Animation 1,320 KB
Animation with the levels set bright.





Comet Animation 380 KB
Animation with the levels set dim. I did this hoping that any brightening of the core would be more easily seen. I think I can see a little brightening of the comet with this version.





Comet Animation 3,089 KB
Larger animation with the levels set bright.



The animations were put together from a sequence of 1 minute exposures taken over approximately 2 hours. They were taken with a Takahashi Epsilon 210 F/3 astrograph and SBIG STL11000 camera. The stationary fuzzy object to the left of the comet is a galaxy.

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