SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Mike Olason
Location of Photo:
Tucson, Arizona
Date/Time of photo:
2024 April 22, 0254UT
Equipment:
50mm f/3.5 refractor and ST-402ME camera, ASI178C camera with FL38mm lens
Description:
On the evening of 2024 April 22 UT Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks was magnitude G=4.4 as it started day 1 in its long journey moving away from the Sun towards apogee in its 71 year orbit. The inset to the right shows what the orange twilight sky looks like as one attempts to show the coma and tails of the comet in the insets on the left and the green filter images used to calculate the comets magnitude using Astrometrica. This is the challenge and fun of taking images of comets, one never knows what the comet will look like the next evening at such low altitudes in a bright orange twilight sky and how much information one can extract from the images using just very basic processing to maintain the reality of what one is actually observing.
