Comet C/2017 E4 Lovejoy: an image (17 Apr. 2017)
Comet C/2017 E4 Lovejoy is now clearly fading and we continue imaging it while it travel to its perihelion.
The image above comes from the sigma clipping combination of twelve, 60-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely taken with the 16″-f/3.75 Tenagra III (“Pearl”) robotic unit part of Tenagra Observatories in Arizona. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the comet. The imaging camera is based on the KAF-16801 CCD, used in 2×2 binning. The resulting image scale is 2.4″/pixel. These observations confirm that comet C2017 E4 Lovejoy is fading.
The observatory hosting the telescope is placed at 1300 meters above the sea level, in the Sonoran desert, providing one of the best skies in the world. This image is the first one coming from a cooperation between the Virtual Telescope Project and Tenagra Observatories, Ltd., which will be announced soon.
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