Comet Ikeya-Zhang - March 30, 2002

Janice and I took the opportunity to visit the Manchester property on Saturday March 30th.  It cleared up somewhat by evening and we were joined by Jeff Thrush and Norb Vance for a comet photo session.  We only had a couple of hours until the moon rise flooded the sky with light.  We also had to fight wispy clouds - but managed to get s few shots anyway.  The comet is low in the northwest in the evening.  This evening it was easy to find as it was just below the star Beta Andromeda and was easy to see naked eye once it got dark.

I took several shots with a 200mm telephoto lens and with my 4" f6 refractor.  They were all about 5 minutes in length, with a little variation due to clouds interfering with my guide star. I did make an equipment error, I left the house without any film.  We had planned to stop at Sam's Club but all they had was Kodak Max 400.  A little advice - don't use Max 400!  Very poor red response. 

At any rate I got several comet pictures that were not too bad and I have posted three of them here.  The first is taken with my Soligor 200mm f3.5 lens and the other two are using my 4" refractor.