Astroblog: And the Ghost of Elenin Flys Past

Monday, October 17, 2011

And the Ghost of Elenin Flys Past

Left Image: comet C/2010 G2 Hill, magnitude 10 at the moment, in the presence of galaxies from magnitude 12-15. I've processed the image just as I did for Elenin (5x120 second exposures, stacked in ImageJ). Right Image: Image of area where Comet C/2010 X1 Elenin should be located. 5x120 sec GRAS05 images stacked in ImageJ.

Well, comet Elenin's closest approach to Earth has come and gone with no doomsday events, or anything of note. I used this opportunity to try and image any remnants of Elenin. I saw nothing on stacked images from GARS05. As a control I imaged magnitude 10 comet C/2010 G2 Hill just before Elenin.

Comet Hill was higher above the horizon, but closer to the Moon than Elenin when this image was taken. It is quite clear, as are several faint galaxies (magnitudes 12-14). So any Elenin remnants must be fainter than a CCD magnitude 10. I'll leave off any further attempts to image Elenin until the Moon has waned somewhat.

Labels: comet, comets, Global Rent-a-Scope