I shot the Comet Neowise tonight!

[thewayne]

(with my wife's pointing directions) She could pick it out in the twilight sky. I could maybe see it, I'm not 100% sure.






Sadly, these are the first two photos that I've posted this year! Well, in terms of creative photography.

We went to a pullout that should have had a good angle, but it had 8-10 cars, and the first person that I saw - before we got out of my wife's car - was not wearing a mask. So I said 'let's just go to the observatory.'

She relented and we went to the observatory.

We couldn't go inside the control room to visit until after sundown - visitors are no longer allowed except under extraordinary circumstances, and spouses are no longer extraordinary. So we went up on to one of the small telescope catwalks, and the angle was great! Excellent elevation to avoid trees and other obstacles. I took a number of shots, including bracketing to try HDR, but that didn't work: with 5-20 second exposures, there was too much star streak for automated HDR to be viable. I might work with it some more, but I like the results of these.

I tried another angle, trying to get one of the telescope domes into the shot, but it just wasn't viable. Maybe another night. I'd also like to try my 6D and see if I can get some less noisy shots with its better sensor.

They're kind of noisy, they were shot at an ISO of 6400, 10 seconds at f7.1 with a Canon SL1 using a remote control as a trigger. The lens is a Canon 75-300 zoom at 75mm. Minimal Photoshop post-processing.

Comments

[moonhare]

Very nice :o) The trees here block any casual viewing and I just don’t go out driving after I get home from work.

[reynardo]

I am most envious. Not even a squeak of a view from down here.

[dewline]

I wasn't able to try for this myself in my neighbourhood. I am somewhat self-disappointed about that.

[thewayne]

I don't have good sightlines in my neighborhood, either.

[seasonoftowers]

How lovely!

That grid-like noise looks like it's fixable with a dark frame btw - I think you can even do that in-camera with long exposure correction.

[thewayne]

I'll have to research that, don't have a clue.

[seasonoftowers]

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/astrophotography/astrophoto-tips/understanding-using-dark-frames-astrophotography/ is a good explanation -you'd basically be using DeepSkyStacker in place of your raw converter

[thewayne]

Thank you!  I don't have any darks from last night, I'll have to remember to take some the next time I'm out.

[seasonoftowers]

If you remember what the temperature was when you shot the lights (within 5 degrees celsius) and can bring the camera to the same temperature, you can reshoot the darks.

Btw, this is a very useful trick for sensor noise in general - if you see any patterns in the noise, they'll show in the darks and cancel out.

[thewayne]

I figured that was the situation.  It wasn't that cold until well into twilight/post-sunset.  I may give that a shot later, not sure how busy my weekend will be.

[murakozi]

That's really darned neat. I've never actually seen a comet other thanin pictures. Unfortunately, there's way too much light pollution where I am and nowhere nearby that I can go to try to get a good view.

[seasonoftowers]

Try it out anyway, you'll be surprised! I saw it earlier this week 45m before dawn in a major city - as long as you can get to a place with a low horizon towards the north, I think you'll be fine.

[falena]

That's so cool!

[motodraconis]

Wow! These are fantastic. Alas, it is still way too light at night for me to have a chance of seeing this myself.

[warriorsavant]

Nice shot

[rain_gryphon]

Nice! I tried to see it the past few nights, but my eyes are no longer that good

[bibliofile]

Cool photos! Also, good use of local advantages (i.e., living near an observatory, with good views & little light pollution).

[thewayne]

There's not a lot of people up here, as a rule.  Our town has an average population of 800, and unless you really know where to look, you can't see Alamogordo and they have light pollution laws because of the two observatories. It's not a bad place to live, but there are downsides.

[acelightning]

We get a lot of evening thunderstorms here within sight of the skyline of Manhattan. (Well, I'm close to Sandy Hook, the barrier beach that almost closes off the entrance to New York Harbor. So there's also a lot of light pollution.)

[silveradept]

Very nice pictures there.

[starwatcher]

.
I'm envious. This corner of the state has had clouds every evening for over a week. No rain, which we desperately need, but plenty of clouds.
.

[thewayne]

We got lucky Wednesday night, no doubt.  In the first photo, it was pretty much solid clouds below 9,000'  Today we had a lot of thunder and lightning, but not a lot of rain and it was mixed cloudy.  No idea what Sunday and the rest of the week holds.  A bit of rain last week, not as much as we need!  There's about a 3/4ths acre fire not far away, but it's mostly contained.

[makovette]

Booyah NICE!

[thewayne]

Thanks!  I was very happy to see the results!