Club member Dave Watkins was inspired to brave a cold night in January to try and capture a photo of Comet Lovejoy (2014 Q2/Lovejoy) but, “It was just too cold to set up the Celestron and/or mount!” Using his camera gear mounted on a tripod and employing modern techniques, Dave captured a beautiful image of the comet as it passed close to the Pleiades star cluster (M45) the night of January 14. (Click the image to see full-size.)

He reports he “really had to play with the ISO and shutter speed because of all the light pollution.”

Technical details: Canon 5D Mark II body, Canon 70-200mm lens @ 70mm, f2.8, ISO400, 5-second exposures, 245 light images, 29 dark images, 29 flat files, master bias file, calibrated, aligned, integrated, and processed in PixInsight with some help from Photoshop.