Comet Lovejoy continues to brighten

Comet Lovejoy continues to rise higher in the southern sky as well as brighten. Although the waxing moon is almost full and putting a damper on the comet imaging, I tried once more to see if I could capture a faint tail.

On the 31st of December, while waiting for the ball to fall and usher in the new year, I took 20-40 subs of the comet using my Canon 50D and Tamron 18-270mm telephoto set to 270mm (mounted and guided piggyback on my telescope rig) to see what I would get. After stacking and processing I was able to get a pretty good image with the tail, very faint, rising up to the left.

Comet Lovejoy
Canon 50D 270mm 20x30sec ISO 800

The large halo surrounding the image was probably due to moonlight entering the lens (need to put the lens hood on next time!)

With the moon nearing full on January 5th, I'll need to wait a bit before imaging Lovejoy again. By the 13-15th of January the moon should be out of the way, and Lovejoy will be much higher in the sky (and hence, light pollution will be lower as well). If Lovejoy continues to brighten during this time she should be sporting a much easier to see tail as well as become easy for binocular viewing. In very dark skies Lovejoy will probably be a naked eye object.