Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) has been in our news for a while now and I've been keeping an eye on when and where it might be visible in our skies.
The 12th / 13th of October were apparently good evenings to see the comet however, that didn't allow for our weather sadly so, the 14th turned out to be a cold and perfectly clear day, into evening.
So around 19:00 (7 o'clock), I dressed myself up nice and warm, including my wellies (with thick socks) and headed over towards the nearby steadings. The comet was supposed to be visible in the SW and my internal compass told me I'd have a good clear view over there.
There was an 81% waxing gibbous moon which was lighting my route and would also have an effect on visibility. (The moon is getting bigger) :)
I set up the tripod on the last of the concrete, I'd forgotten the binoculars of course and started scanning around. I also had to set and check focus on the camera. I'd brought two, one with a longer lens in case I got a good view.
I faffed around for a good while getting the focus set up on the Z2 with an older 18-300mm lens on it and once I was happy I was pretty close, I took a couple of test shots, starting WNW and ending SW, as if I was creating a panorama shot later by joining the two images but, when I looked at the second image, I could see a streak in the sky!
I couldn't believe it. Not only could I see it, I'd just taken my first photograph of it, of any Comet, ever!
First shot at 19:34
What a strange feeling. Elated, excited, really quite surprised. I don't ever remember seeing a comet before (I must have).
I've kept the shot above as dark as possible to try and emulate what I could actually see, our eyes don't capture what the camera does, especially as I was leaving the shutter open for several seconds, to let the light in and ensure I got the shot.
So I started zooming, changing settings, angles etc. to get a decent set of varied images if possible.
As you can see, the shot above is much lighter and in fact the moon was helping by lighting up the ground around me and in my opinion, those bales in front of me made for great foreground detail.
You can also see in this shot, that there is low haze or cloud over there, I realised I only had a short window to get shots anyway but that cloud was reducing the time I had.
Change cameras, quick!
So I managed to get some closer shots with the 180-600mm on a Z50. I've since also noticed how many satellites are scudding around up there! What the heck is going on? Do we REALLY need all those? I doubt it.
You can see in that shot, the comet is starting to fade into that low haze.
Almost gone
I also realised I was freezing! You get all wrapped up in the task and then when you stop.... so, I wrapped everything up, not literally and headed home again, pretty sure I'd managed to get something fairly decent. Smiling all the way :)
So there we are. A once in a lifetime experience. 80,00 years from now, if there's anyone left, they can look up into the sky like I did and see Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) again.
Hope the weather's clear again tonight :)
