Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: a new image (11 Apr. 2016)
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: 11 Apr. 2016
On 11 Apr. we slewed our main robotic unit to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko again, after our previous, successful session. The object was in the same spot in the sky as the famous “Leo Triplet” (M 65, M66 and NGC 3628 . Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is the target of the ESA Rosetta space mission.
This image above comes from the average of 12, 300-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely collected with the PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E robotic unit part of the Virtual Telescope Project. Binning 2×2, with a resulting scale of 1.2″/pixel. The robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion of the comet, so stars left trails on the background. A nice tail is visible, extending at least for 11 arcminutes. On the bottom, a negative palette, helps displaying that feature. More images will follow, weather permitting.
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