Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

On my initial post the other day I took a 500mm image of the comet but a lot of the tail was missing. Here is a shot at 200mm from the other day. Even at 200mm some of the tail is still missing, however the blue ion tail is more prominent (ion tail is gas that has been ionized by the the UV light from the sun and is effected the solar magnetic field which causes it to bend differently than the dust tail which is only driven by the solar wind). Like the 500mm shot this one was made by stacking multiple images together and as with the 500mm shot the stars and comet where stacked separately the recombined at the end to prevent trailing of either of them. In this image I did have an issue with trees in a number of the exposures which didn't look good since the pictures where being guided. You can see some artifacts along the bottom left side of the image where I attempted to remove the ugly blurry trees. Note: most of the stars still showed up where I removed the tress since a number of the shots still had all the stars in the image. All comments suggestions and questions are welcome.

For those interested here is a link to the 500mm shot
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-656332-1.html

Comet Neowise at 200 mm

(Download)

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

Nice work.
Could you elaborate on ISO and speed?

Shootist Loc: Wyoming

Nice.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Tradio
This image was made by stacking 24 images each 30 seconds long with the ISO set to 800. The lens used was a canon 70-200 F2.8 zoom lens set to 200mm and F2.8. (I accidently left image stabilization on which did add a small amount of distortion to stars on the right hand side of the image).
The 500 mm image I referenced was made by stacking 18 images each 30 seconds long also at ISO 800, however the F stop was 4.0 in that case.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Longshadow
Thanks for the thumbs up.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Shootist
Thanks for checking out the photo.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Amazing image. I got some shots of Hale-Bopp years ago that also show two tails. On the slide film I used there was a yellow (high Na?) tail and a smaller thinner blue one. Your image there looks similar but much better! Wow, you are really far North, 39 degrees. I've taken Comet pix ages ago from the Joshua Tree N.M./N.P. but that is only around 32-33 degrees. And with Palm Springs and Coachella Valley grown so much it is not all that dark anymore. There days I would go to the Carrizo Plain (off Hwys 166 or 58) for a dark sky now that I moved to SLO Co. CA.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi lamiaceae
Thanks for checking out the image. Hale-Bopp was a great comet back in 1997 and much brighter than Neowise, it was also somewhat unique in that it did have a lot of sodium in it compared to most comets. The double tail is very common in comets it just varies how bright each tail is. I also got a film shot of Hale-Bopp with a 50mm lens with a home made barn door tracker, it came out OK, but with today's digital camera's and processing software, a great shot is a lot easier to get.

Navywife66 Loc: NC

Great capture! Sadly I have not been able to see it from our home!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Navywife66
Currently it is in the northwest about 15 degrees above the horizon after sunset. It is not bright and requires somewhat dark skies to see with the naked eye. However if you can see the northwest horizon or at least 10-15 degrees above the horizon it should be fairly easy to find with binoculars once it gets dark. (That is around 10:00PM where I'm at).

J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio

Very nice shot

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

Thanks,

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

That’s nice!

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

Very well done.