Greetings everyone,
Just wanted to give everyone an update on comet Nishimura. The good news is that it did survive its' close perihelion on Sept. 17th. The not so good news is that it didn't brighten beyond predictions. Latest estimates gave it 2nd to 3rd magnitude on Sept. 17, and 4th mag. as of today.
I made one last attempt on the morning of Sept. 7th to get an image before its' rising time over trees to my east became too late to get anything during twilight. As shown in the attached image, I was able to capture much more of its' ion tail despite a waxing Moon and the twilight.
My attempts to image it on Sept. 17th got clouded out. I was able to capture it the very next evening about 30 minutes after sunset before it disappeared behind some trees. The attached image was a stack of 8 shots of 2 seconds each taken with my Canon 75-300 zoom lens set at 200mm. It was more of a challenge than I expected just trying to find the faint glow of the comet in my images against the Sun's strong glare. I was able to bring out some of the tail. It was only 4 degrees above the horizon at the time.
The comet will now dive more to the south to become visible to those in the Southern Hemisphere an hour after sunset the next few weeks.
Stay tuned for a treat from another comet that's coming to our northern skies this time next year. Some are billing this one as the "Comet of the Century", reaching magnitude 0 at its' brightest. I'll be keeping everyone informed if it begins to live up to all of the hype.
Clear Skies, Johnny