Comet Linear C/2001 A2 photographed from Indian Ridge. Indian ridge is a remote observing site East of Vida, OR. Latitude: 44°00′ 4.10”North Longitude: 122°15’26” West 5242’ Seeing: E Transparency: 6-7 Bortle: 2 SQM: 21.68. Mount: Losmandy G11 Stepper motors, non-GOTO. Telescope: Celestron C11 used for guiding. Canon F1 with Canon 100mm f/2.8 lens piggyback. Kodak Elite Chrome 200 slide film pushed 1, 14 min. exposure. Slide # 5 was scanned with a Nikon ED5000. The Tiff file was then processed in Photoshop.
Only chance in Oregon to see the comet and view the Leonid Meteor Shower. November 18, 2001 9:30 PM till 2:30 AM November 19,2001. Very cold and 2 feet of snow, around 0-10 degrees with winds of 10-15 mph. Images were shortly limited to only a few minutes. Ice would form on the lens when exposed to the air. Alcohol was used to clear the ice and clean the lens filter. Lucky to capture this comet with just a 100mm f/2.8 lens. The comet is in the center, at 5 o’clock below a red star, Comet Linear is greenish with a slight halo.
Comet Linear C/2001 A2 was discovered by LINEAR on 15 January 2001. LINEAR, the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research, program is expanding astronomers’ knowledge about the population of asteroids and comets in our solar system.