Comet Lovejoy from Brisbane

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Hi guys,

Sorry, don't do much astro these days (bung shoulder), let alone photography. After my crappy attempts at McNaught a few years ago, really want to try and grab a decent comet image this time around. Not really happy with this shot, but it was the best of a bunch taken this morning pre-dawn. I was about half an hour too late imho

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7029/6...69b1f9fd_o.jpg

Did anyone else find that the predawn light washes out the comet and you can't even spot it then? I find it quite faint too, about mag 4 I'd say, from suburbia it's a difficult spot imho as it's low on the horizon. I grabbed the car at 3.30am and made an impromptu decision to drive a few km out of town - far better! Intend to go back to the same spot tonight if weather permits.

Other notes - I find it really hard to focus my camera - infinity focus point is not sharp for infinity!!! I find it too faint for my eyes to be able to focus accurately. Any others have this issues, or are my eyes just bad?

Merry Christmas everyone too!

Dave

[renormalised (Carl)]

Nice shot, Dave. Could do with being earlier though. Try to get to your site around 2:30am. The comet's best between 3 and 3:30am...although our (Liz and mine) shots around 4-4:30am on Xmas Eve looked alright.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Nice shot, Dave. Could do with being earlier though. Try to get to your site around 2:30am. The comet's best between 3 and 3:30am...although our (Liz and mine) shots around 4-4:30am on Xmas Eve looked alright.

Yeah, I realised my error when I got to the dark side (ten mins drive down the road, awesome spot considering it's still in Brisbane). I'll be heading off around 2am this morning if it's clear *fingers crossed*.

Thanks!

Dave

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

woo hoo. Well nabbed.

[astronobob (Bob)]

Nice capture Dave The coment is quite high that late eh, well done.
Were you using auto focus or Manual, if manual, you find that most lenses will focus a tad past infinity and you may need to bring it back a tad ? I tried a few positions with an old film camera yrs ago and finally marked the sharpest point on the lens for future reference ? Hope this is of use ?

[Octane (Humayun)]

Hi Dave,

You're right, once it gets light, forget it.

For best results, you want to shoot before the beginning of astronomical twilight (about 1.5 hours before sunrise). Anything post-that and you'll lose contrast. It's great for landscape images, but, not so good for bringing out detail in the comet.

This is the problem I had last night -- I got to my location very early, but, the comet was so low that it was being blocked by cloud on the horizon. All I could see was the tail.

Good luck tonight!

H

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by astronobob

Nice capture Dave The coment is quite high that late eh, well done.
Were you using auto focus or Manual, if manual, you find that most lenses will focus a tad past infinity and you may need to bring it back a tad ? I tried a few positions with an old film camera yrs ago and finally marked the sharpest point on the lens for future reference ? Hope this is of use ?

Yes, I went out today with the 50mm and checked it out , focus is just before the infinity marker on the lens barrel. Since I'm not deep sky observing, a touch will be used to be sure ;-)

Originally Posted by Octane

Hi Dave,

You're right, once it gets light, forget it.

For best results, you want to shoot before the beginning of astronomical twilight (about 1.5 hours before sunrise). Anything post-that and you'll lose contrast. It's great for landscape images, but, not so good for bringing out detail in the comet.

This is the problem I had last night -- I got to my location very early, but, the comet was so low that it was being blocked by cloud on the horizon. All I could see was the tail.

Good luck tonight!

H

Yes, you right I reckon. I said to myself last night that it was a recon. Might not go tonight - I got to bed at 6am this morning, had a very broken sleep through to just after midday, but really dog tired, can barely keep my eyes open. Tried to get some sleep earlier and was just drifting off into deep sleep when my mum comes home from the hospital banging on the front door...she had her keys but decided it was more important to wake me up instead of using her own keys...*sigh*. Couldn't get back to sleep after that and gave up I think it'll be too dangerous for me to drive given how tired I am. And it's a clear night too

Dave

[naskies (Dave)]

Good job - the comet has good contrast against the sky. I think you might be able to push your black point up a bit higher to get some more pop out of the image (the trees are silhouetted anyway so clipping doesn't matter)?

All of my Canon lenses focus "past" optical infinity. The reason is apparently because the infinity focus point varies quite significantly with temperature - especially with wide aperture lenses.

Do you have LiveView on your camera? If so, it really helps with focus. I find that I need to turn my focus ring by fractions of a millimetre to get the focus perfect.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Yeah, I do have live view on my camera, but I'm still getting used to the 60D and it's features. Good idea though! Just about to go and check if it's clear skies, if so, will head off around 2ish to my "dark site". Would love to get a decent shot, just to prove a point to myself that I don't suck at astro images rofl.

Dave