Comet 289P/Blanpain

I tried to observe 289P/Blanpain that was is in Aquarius constellation and now in accordance to maps is the most bright comet on the sky.

Unfortunately, even it appears to have 9.91m, I couldn’t find it on the sky.

Also I didn’t succeed to find it on photos I made. I tried different ISO and exposure time setting, but no luck.

The only explanation I have is that it is too disperse for my conditions.

ISO6400 1.6 sec

ISO3200 8 sec

ISO 6400 8 sec



Aldebaran

Aldebaran was clearly seen with naked eye (not a surprise).





Pleiades

Now we got to the most interesting part of this observation: Pleiades.

I took a series of single shots with different parameters and then series of shots for stacking in DeepSkyStacker.

Results are below:

ISO 6400 1.6 sec

ISO 6400 0.8 sec

ISO 6400 0.5 sec

Stack: ISO 6400 10×0.25 sec with dark frames

My previous experience with DSS was much worse – I had issues with stars detection. I am almost sure that is was caused by absence of dark frames.

Clear Sky!