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How To Track And Image Comets Using SkySafari Software? (Answer: Read On!)

Does SkySafari have any way of centering on a comet and then sending the location continually to a connected telescope so the comet stays centered in the telescope?

I used SkySafari 6 Pro connected via wifi to my Meade 10" LX200 to find Comet Leonard recently.  It worked great and I was able to get some decent photos of the comet. I didn't notice or check while it was connected if there was any way to have it track on the comet versus just having the telescope tracking at the sidereal rate as normal.  It would great it it could somehow track the comet and update the location to the telescope.

Thank You.

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    Keiron Smith

    Randy,

    Bill Tschumy replied to a similar post on CloudyNights.com saying this:

    SkySafari and most (all??) other planetarium programs will center on the comet but not track it.  Once the GoTo has completed, the mount handles the sidereal tracking.  The comets are kept in view simply because they (mostly) move slowly relative to the background stars.  You can do periodic GoTos to keep the comet centered as SkySafari continually updates its predictiion of the comet's location.

    There are a couple of suggestions for software workarounds (not using SkySafari).

    A few imagers stated tracking the star field was sufficient for capturing comets.  But, would depend on each comet.  And, also on accepted result.

    https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/566678-what-goto-program-to-find-and-track-comets/

    Tony Cook offers a tutorial about "image processing using double stacking techniques" - looks very good!

    https://www.astrobin.com/151422/0/

    https://www.astrobin.com/288768/0/

    Enjoy and please share your results in our community forums!

     

     

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