M45 with Comet Machholz

Click to Zoom

Comet Machholz with the Pleiades — Comet C/2004 Q2 passing within two degrees of M45 on January 7, 2005.

Date: January 7, 2005

Location: Copperbreaks State Park near Quanah, Texas

Transparency: 6.2 mag zenithal; heavy dew, frost

Seeing: 4/10

Temperature: 26 degrees F; camera cooled to -25 degrees C

Scope/Mount: Tak FSQ-106 @ f/5 and Tak NJP mount

Camera: SBIG STL-11000, self-guided

Exposure Info: LRGB image. 15:15:9:15 minutes (5 x 3 minutes Luminance; 3 x 5 minutes red; 3 x 3 minutes green; 3 x 5 minutes blue), RGB binned 2x2.

Processing: Dark frame calibration, registration, artificial flats, gradient removal and Sigma Combine in MaxIm DL 4. Digital Development and RGB combine in MaxIm DL 4. Luminance blending, color balance, curves, levels, sharpening and despeckle in Photoshop CS.

About this Object

January 7, 2005 was a memorable night. The best comet to grace the sky since Ikeya-Zhang in 2002, Comet Machholz was a magnitude 4, naked eye comet on this night when it came within 2 arc degrees of the Pleiades star cluster. But what has made Comet Machholz — C/2004 Q2 in "comet speak" — so memorable is that it has stayed in the high skies of northern hemisphere observers during its peak brightening period and subsequent fading period when it begins to make its exit from the solar system.

Shooting images of comets is very difficult to do since comets move at a faster pace than the stars. Therefore, if you wish to keep the background from trailing, exposures have to be very short. Normally, this is good enough for the comet, but not good enough to bring in enough detail in the background. In this case, because the reflection nebulosity surrounding M45 is somewhat easy to capture (relatively speaking), the final result shows a nice amount of detail in both objects.

🤖 AI-drafted · unverified

What it is: Comet Machholz (C/2004 Q2) was a long-period comet discovered in 2004 that became bright enough to see with the naked eye; in early January 2005 it passed strikingly close to the Pleiades (M45) as seen from Earth.
Constellation: Taurus (Pleiades' location at the time)
Distance: Pleiades ~444 ly; comet distance varied (a temporary solar-system visitor)
Apparent magnitude: Pleiades 1.6; comet ~3.5–4 at its brightest
Angular size: Pleiades ~110 arcminutes
Coordinates: Pleiades: RA 03h 47m, Dec +24° 07′

This summary was generated by an AI assistant from general astronomical references, not from Jay's own notes on this specific image. Treat every detail above as a starting point for research, not settled fact.