Astrophotography: Comet Johnson C/2015 V2

I still remember 1986 when Halley's comet came through.  I was only in third grade and I never actually saw it in the sky.  I just remember hearing the headlines about it and I have a vivid memory of sitting in school and we all talked about comets and looked at pictures.   Halley's comet is supposed to come back in 2061.  I will be 83 years old when it returns and I surely hope I can put this comet on my bucket list.

It was Halley's comet along with a solar eclipse when I was in 2nd grade that first started my love of space.  I remember the excitement and joy of those events like they were yesterday.

While I have a long time to wait for Halley's comet, there are always comets in our solar system making their lonely trip around the sun and some get close enough that I can try to photograph them.   Comet Johnson C/2015 V2 is a comet that is currently taking a closer view of our sun.

J.A. Johnson discovered C/2015 V2 on November 3rd, 2015.  Since the discovery Comet Johnson has steadily been making its way towards our sun.   When a comet reaches the closest point to the sun it is called the perihelion and C/2015 V2 reached perihelion on June 12th, 2017.  It is usually right before that a comet is its most visible from the Earth before it gets lost behind the sun.  As a comet gets closer the sun it brightens up as it trails a tail of dust and gas.  In May of 2017 this comet was visible with binoculars so it did get fairly bright.

I went out in late May and try to get a view of Comet Johnson.  Here was my very amateur attempts.

Light Frames 71 x 60 seconds
Scope:  SV90 refractor
Mount:  Celestron AVX
Guide camera:  ASI120
Processing:  DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight