I spent this morning compiling 10 minutes worth of image captures of Comet ISON on 11/16/13 into a time-lapse video that reveals some interesting things in the tail of the comet. 135 images spanning from 0529 to 0539 hrs MST were used.
Firstly, the tail is much longer than is apparent in my images (photographing from light-polluted areas obscures the brightness of the tail of the comet). Once I registered (aligned) the 135 images, the video shows that the tail is, at times, approximately 5x longer than it first appears in most images. Secondly, at about 13 seconds in to the video linked below, immediately downstream of the coma, you can see what looks like bright areas flashing (or pulsing) downstream from the head of the comet.
I wish I could have been in a dark sky area to photograph the comet the last two nights, but in both cases weather forecasts called for several levels of high clouds, and I didn’t think it worth it to go driving around at 3:00 in the morning under cloudy skies. Live and learn!
