Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner: an image (11 Sept. 2018)
While both at its perihelion and about at its minimum distance from the Earth, we imaged comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, under good sky conditions. Here it is what we saw.
Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner: 11 Sept. 2018
The image above comes from the average of 12, 180-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely collected “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project. The robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, so stars left trails on the background. The image scale is 1.2″/pixel.
Once averaged, images were carefully processed to assure a good visibility of both the bright false nucleus and the faint coma. About 40 arc-mins North, there was the open star cluster Messier 37, offering a great sight.
We plan to observe this comet regularly.
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