Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)
October 17, 2012

Image: Kuhn Setup by Pat Knoll - 2012

OCA Observatory
Equipment setup for aquiring images to create animation sequence

Tuesday/Wednesday October 16/17 2012 was an all nighter for Trey McGriff and myself at the Kuhn telescope. About 00:50 Pacific Daylight Time (pdt) we focused the Kuhn on Castor, then Trey walked the telescope to the comet's position. At about 01:00 pdt I started the three 20 minute exposures before we both ran out of gas. The above photos were taken after the third image download. Note the position of the telescope.

Image:by Pat Knoll and Trey McGriff - 2012
Stack of 3 Full frame images
Visually in the constellation of Cancer
Physically between Saturn and Jupiter - One year out

Image: C/2012 S1 by Pat Knoll and Trey McGriff - 2012
3 Frame Animation
May take a moment to load
Comet C/2012 (ISON)
Magnitude 20.7 according to the info displayed by 'TheSky v6.0.0.65'
RA:08h 20m 18s - DEC:+27d 52' 48" - North is up
10/17/2012

Image: C/2012 S1 by Pat Knoll and Trey McGriff - 2012
The tail is probably just a blur from the comet's motion during the exposure


Due to weather conditions at the OCA observatory, November, December, January and February were a bust for more comet images using the telescope