Comet 8/P Tuttle Comet 8/P Tuttle animation from Conon Bridge on 29 December 2007 at 21:18h to 21:39h UT Comet 8/P Tuttle from Conon Bridge on 29 December 2007 at 21:18h to 21:39h UT Wonderful clear, steady skies over Conon Bridge and a woderful subject to study - Comet 18/P Tuttle.   I couldn't see it with the naked eye but it was very easy to spot with 10x50 binos .  I also managed to capture it using my Canon 400D at prime focus through the Meade 8" SCT (with f/6.3 focal reducer attached). Comet 8/P Tuttle is a periodic comet and it was last visible 13.6 years ago.  It makes its closest appearance to Earth on Jan 1st/2nd 2008, a mere 24 million miles away.  It is predicted to brighten to magnitude 5.8, bright enough to see with the naked eye from a dark sky site such as this location.  The comet's colour arises from the chemical components cyanogen (CN) and diatomic carbon (C2) in the comet's atmosphere glowing green when exposed to the Sun's energy in the near-vacuum of space. The thing moves at one helluva speed.  The animated .gif attached here is over only a 20min 45sec period.  1st image was captured at 21h 18m 17s (according to my camera data file) and the last one at 21h 39m 02sec.  Bill Leslie worked out that it was travelling in the region of 10 arcseconds per minute.  He worked out the dynamics using the following data  - dimensions of the image above are approximately 42' x 25'; the very bright star (blob) at the centre of the bottom third of the image is TYC2300-917-1. The static image of the comet is the composite of the 19 images used in the animation but centered on the comet. Optics Meade LX50 8" SCT f/6.3 focal reducer Camera Canon EOS 400D at prime focus Focus Manual Exposure 30 - 90 seconds single image Driven mount Image Processing 19 x .jpg images  converted to .gif after processing then combined (UnFREEZ) Photoshop CS NeatImage