Comet 88P/Howell
Comet 88P/Howell
I imaged Comet P88/Howell in September. It is located in the constellation of Aries. The comet was a bit fainter than the 11.2 magnitude estimated by my Skytools software. You can see the faint tail extending out past the edge of the field to the right of the coma toward the 4:00 position. The image above is 40 minutes total exposure with LRGB filters. The brighter galaxy at the upper right is IC267, a 13.9 magnitude barred spiral. You can just make out the extended arms in the image. To the right of the comet near the edge is 15.1 magnitude galaxy MCG 2-8-26 (PGC10917). You can also pick out almost a dozen fainter galaxies down to mag. 18 in the image. The faint galaxy in the tail of the comet is LEDA 1414124 at magnitude 17.8. The Skytools screen capture below shows the comet’s location with many of the galaxies in the field labeled. The number in parentheses in the galaxy magnitude with the decimal omitted.
Data:
CON Dennis G. Wilde, TDO
OBS D. Wilde
MEA D. Wilde
TEL 127mm F7.5 APO Refractor + CCD
NET UCAC-4
0088P C2015 09 15.15028 02 54 58.48 +12 42 20.5 15.9 N XXX
0088P C2015 09 15.16174 02 54 58.21 +12 42 20.2 15.8 N XXX
0088P C2015 09 15.17433 02 54 57.91 +12 42 19.4 15.7 N XXX
Constellation: Aries
Telescope: ES127mm F7.5 APO Refractor
Mount: Paramount MX+
Camera: ATIK One 6.0
Filters: Astronomik LRGB
Guide Scope: None
Guide Camera: None
Total Integration: 40 minutes LRGB
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