Neowise comet from Arizona

Mike Drone · Jul 17, 2020

In the middle of the desert. Below is the comet from our view. Also below is a selfie to show how dark the desert is. I mentioned it but it's hard to explain the black sky. My daughter has the Skywalk app and is tracking the astros in the second picture, you can see the camera on the tripod taking a long exposure. While doing a long exposure the camera and tripod fell over... not amused... it was all fun though. Thanks @SquarePeg =]

Space Face · Jul 17, 2020

It is indeed dark.

Peeb · Jul 17, 2020

Looks like a great memory was made!

SquarePeg · Jul 17, 2020

Could you see it with your eyes? We were able to just barely make it out once our eyes adjusted to the night and we turned off our lcd screens. The younger kids we ran into on the beach had no problem spotting it but our over 50 trio had to really make an effort.

Mike Drone · Jul 17, 2020

We could see it with our eyes but it was really faint. We could barley see the front of the comet and had to struggle to see the tail. The picture above is a 3 min. exposure and is still barely visible.

SquarePeg · Jul 17, 2020

Mike Drone said:
We could see it with our eyes but it was really faint. We could barley see the front of the comet and had to struggle to see the tail. The picture above is a 3 min. exposure and is still barely visible.

3 minutes! You’re kidding? I was shooting at 8-12 seconds. What ISO and aperture were you using?

Mike Drone · Jul 17, 2020

SquarePeg said:
Mike Drone said:

We could see it with our eyes but it was really faint. We could barley see the front of the comet and had to struggle to see the tail. The picture above is a 3 min. exposure and is still barely visible.

Click to expand...

3 minutes! You’re kidding? I was shooting at 8-12 seconds. What ISO and aperture were you using?

I was using a kit lens 18-55mm (in 18mm) ISO 400 F4 Bulb #3. I had a 70-200 with me but I was being lazy. Since I had my daughter I was watching for snakes and friends. =]

*Edit I need to check something because with #3 I should have star trailing. I will check the RAW data...

*edit I apologize the raw file says ISO400 55mm f5.6 10 secs for the above image

zulu42 · Jul 17, 2020

you might double check the manual on that "bulb #3" setting can't be a 3 minute exposure.

Mike Drone · Jul 17, 2020

You are correct. I was just typing that it couldn't be right because of star trailing. I need to check the RAW file. I know it was 9:15 and I stopped at 9:18. I could possibly have listed the data for the wrong picture. =]

*edit I apologize the raw file says ISO400 55mm f5.6 10 secs for the above image

Mike Drone · Jul 17, 2020

This is the 3 min capture...all of my images are straight out of camera. I don't PS or LR unless I am going for a certain look or need a higher quality image. For no particular reason.

SquarePeg · Jul 17, 2020

If you try again, go with 8 seconds, ISO 3200 and see what you get. Better to have noise than trails I think. You can always use noise reduction afterwards.

Snakes and...?

Mike Drone · Jul 17, 2020

SquarePeg said:
If you try again, go with 8 seconds, ISO 3200 and see what you get. Better to have noise than trails I think. You can always use noise reduction afterwards.

Snakes and...?

Scorpions, Spiders (Tarantula (rarely bite)), Wild Donkeys (I carry apple slices just for them but sometimes they are in a bad mood), Drug Runners, Illegals. *sigh* Border town...