ISON image from this morning (9/6/13)

This is my first image of ISON since April, and the first to be captured with my own personal telescope (an 8" Meade LX200). The comet doesn't look like much yet, it's still very dim. I was just able to make it out above the light pollution level. My usual observing site has decent skies, but the light pollution is much worse in the east than high overhead or in the west, and unfortunately ISON is hanging out low in the east at dawn. It was only 20 degrees above the horizon when I captured it.
:ison962013:

Here is an astrometrically solved version of the image:
[link to nova.astrometry.net]
As you can see by astrometry, the comet appears as a small streak from about 8h 50m 11.58s, +21d 29' 29.2" to about 8h 50m 11.95s, +21d 29' 26.05", in perfect agreement with the orbit of ISON.

For those fans of google sky out there, you can use this KMZ file to view the image in google sky and fade between the image and the background google sky mosaic to see that there is nothing there at ISON's position that could otherwise account for the appearance of that smudge in the image:
[link to nova.astrometry.net]

Now that I have reacquired it myself, I can start doing ISON webcasts in the morning to watch the comet live.

Last Edited by Astromut on 09/06/2013 09:00 AM