After hearing about the Neowise, a comet which is passing through our patch of the solar system, I decided to try and get some photos of it. My first attempt was not a success. It wasn't exactly a failure, either.
It was too late to capture the comet, but dawn's early light is beautiful to work with.
The drastic temperature changes also left the river valey blanketed in a dense fog. These types of lnadscapes are fun to shoot and it was a great way to start off the work week.
After a long week of ten-hour days and overtime, I finally had another chance. The comet is, now, visible in the evening sky. Thursday night, in the middle of a rural lake with a closed-off road running through the middle of it, Neowise was easy to spot!
While the Canon EOS RP isn't exactly an astro-photography camera, it did a far better job than my old Canon 7D would have. These were taken on a tripod with longer exposures.
With wider-angle lenses like the image above, you can get away with about 15 seconds of exposure. I also took some at 200mm and had to limit exposure to under eight seconds, or it started to look like a celestial rice storm.
The last image of this post is a compilation of fourteen images taken at 200mm. Using multiple exposures and combining them allows you to eliminate a lot of the sensor noise. Photoshop couldn't auto-align the images, so I spent roughly three hours getting the stars lined up. I actually had to process the top 2/3 and bottom 1/3 in two batches, because what works for stars would have gotten rid of the fireflies. The end result is fairly nice, though I wouldn't say it's my favorite photo ever.
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