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Comet Lulin sighted
February 26, 2009 at 01:35
After further examination on Wednesday of the early morning’s photos with a colleague, Adam, we discovered that I had indeed captured a frame with Comet Lulin. The first photo, from last night, is a little wider angle shot than the one originally posted. This reveals that the comet was in fact right under my nose. The red arrow points to the greenish hued comet. The tail can be just barely seen extending toward the 8 o’clock direction. The streaking effect is due to the movement of the earth during the 30 second exposure. Real star photogs have rigs that track the movement to eliminate that during long exposures.
After making this discovery, I decided to take Daniela on an outing this evening to see if we could spot this green comet again. After 20 minutes of sky-searching I was able to get this second shot.
