On March 15th, Terry Lovejoy of Thornlands, Queensland, Australia, discovered a 9th-magnitude comet in the southern constellation Indus the Indian. The comet has been named Comet Lovejoy (C/2007 E2).

Remarkably, Lovejoy made the discovery not with a telescope but using an off-the-shelf digital camera! In fact, it appears to be the very first case of the discovery of a comet discovered in this manner.

Lovejoy was using a Canon 350D with a zoom lens set to 200-mm focal length at f/2.8. Lovejoy spotted the object near the frame edge in 16 exposures of 90 seconds each. The images were obtained during a comet-hunting survey that Lovejoy has been conducting for more than two years. [ more ]

Canon has had a long history of providing equipment for astrophotography and even had a model of the 20D specifically for astronomers using a infrared filter that was very sensitive to hydrogen-alpha light. This was also the first DSLR made by Canon to have the Live View technology that is being released in the new EOS 1D Mark IIII. Once again proof that space research eventually makes it into consumers hands.