The Problem(s) With Photographing Comets
Seward County Nebraska
I went out to try to get a photo of Comet C/2022 E3. We had finally gotten a clear night. I had read a few accounts saying that the comet was visible if you looked in the right spot and it was easily visible with binoculars. So, I went out knowing that I was violating one of the cardinal rules of astrophotography - the moon has to be below the horizon. On this night the moon was up at sunset and was setting at 6:00 a.m. I had a 7:00 a.m. meeting so going in the early morning was out of the question (and that was getting awfully close to sunrise anyway). Besides this, it was very cold about 10 degrees(F) with a light wind. I hadn't used my star tracker for a few months and it turned out that the battery was dead. No problem. I brought a backup battery. But....... the wrong cord. Darn! Have to get pictures without the tracker. Then the compass function on my star phone app wouldn't work. I don't know if that was due to the cold - did I say it was penetratingly cold? After turning the compass off and getting everything oriented to the right direction I got the stars lined up and figured out the right spot to look. Then my camera did something it's never done before. (I think I did say that it was damn cold) It wouldn't leave the menu page if I was using the back screen. OK. I'll just turn the back screen off and use the eye piece. Of course all of this is happening along with the usual frustrations of trying to do photography in the dark - though it wasn't as bad as usual due to that bright nearly full moon.
So, you can easily see the comet with binoculars right? Wrong. Not with a nearly full moon up. Eventually I had to give up when my fingers were too numb to run any of the camera functions or the knobs on the tripod, but I couldn't leave without getting a photo of something. The choice was easy - the dastardly moon that had foiled me in getting any photo at all of the comet.
The Problem(s) With Photographing Comets
Seward County Nebraska
I went out to try to get a photo of Comet C/2022 E3. We had finally gotten a clear night. I had read a few accounts saying that the comet was visible if you looked in the right spot and it was easily visible with binoculars. So, I went out knowing that I was violating one of the cardinal rules of astrophotography - the moon has to be below the horizon. On this night the moon was up at sunset and was setting at 6:00 a.m. I had a 7:00 a.m. meeting so going in the early morning was out of the question (and that was getting awfully close to sunrise anyway). Besides this, it was very cold about 10 degrees(F) with a light wind. I hadn't used my star tracker for a few months and it turned out that the battery was dead. No problem. I brought a backup battery. But....... the wrong cord. Darn! Have to get pictures without the tracker. Then the compass function on my star phone app wouldn't work. I don't know if that was due to the cold - did I say it was penetratingly cold? After turning the compass off and getting everything oriented to the right direction I got the stars lined up and figured out the right spot to look. Then my camera did something it's never done before. (I think I did say that it was damn cold) It wouldn't leave the menu page if I was using the back screen. OK. I'll just turn the back screen off and use the eye piece. Of course all of this is happening along with the usual frustrations of trying to do photography in the dark - though it wasn't as bad as usual due to that bright nearly full moon.
So, you can easily see the comet with binoculars right? Wrong. Not with a nearly full moon up. Eventually I had to give up when my fingers were too numb to run any of the camera functions or the knobs on the tripod, but I couldn't leave without getting a photo of something. The choice was easy - the dastardly moon that had foiled me in getting any photo at all of the comet.