Comet 168P/ Hergenrother

 

Great news for keen comet observers, a well known periodic comet has suddenly gone into a substantial outburst and is now visible through backyard telescopes. 168P/ Hergenrother is a short period comet which visits the inner solar every 6.9 years. Normally the comet glows at a sorry magnitude 15 however something happened - perhaps a new dust jet - which caused the comet to brighten considerably, recent visual estimates place the comet between magnitude 10.2 and 10.5 putting the icy visitor within range of 6" aperture telescopes. Here is an animation I made from 60 x 1 minute exposures. Visible in the top corner of Pegasus at present and moving it's way through to Andromeda.

This is my Animation of 60 x 1 minute frames.

 

 

60 X 1 minute frames stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and a little DDP