Hale-Bopp comet entered the scene in the late 90’s, just as I was starting to learn astrophotography, and although I observed it on many occasions, I never tried to image it. In January 2015. I imaged Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) from my home observatory, using the Tak FSQ 106 and STL 11K CCD camera, tracked with a Paramount ME. This consisted of a 3 minute exposure through each of red, green, and blue filters, for a total of 9 minutes; no darks, no flats. Processing was in Photoshop. To help reduce noise I ended up converting the image to grayscale, except for the greenish head of the comet. I didn’t expect a great (or even good) image, given the local light pollution, but the photons that produced this image were (and will always be) mine.
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