Comet 2005 L1 McNaught. July 17, 2014.
Combination of 5, 3 minute images unfiltered.
SBIG STL-1001E CCD. 20" f/6.8 cassegrain at prime focus.
Comet 2005 L1 McNaught is a rather faint periodic comet that is a member of Jupiter's "family" of comets. The orbital period is about 7.92 years. First discovered in 2005, I tried to image it during its second observed return in 2014. Although at the time it was predicted to be at magnitude 16.7, It had not yet been recovered, and it was this thhat spiked my interest. Unfortunately, a close inspection of my resulting attempt to image the comet yeilded no trace of it despite showing stars down to magnitude 20.