Comet Panstarrs - Farm Panorama

[Phil Hart]

Sunday 3rd March.. second night of comet hunting.. so much fun!

I avoided the complexity of imaging near the Cape Schanck lighthouse this time and parked along Boneo Rd looking over a farm I'd scoped out on Streetview (damn handy!) just a few hundred metres before the lighthouse road.

This is pretty much the image I was hoping to get.. I love it when a plan comes together :).

More info and larger version:
http://philhart.com/content/comet-hunting-march

Phil

[h0ughy]

Its very hard to see the image through tears. the pain of viewing such a fantastic shot is near killing me.... we will never get to see this. Brilliant effort Phil

[MrB]

Very nice Phil, love the cow on the hill :thumbsup:

[swannies1983]

That's a great capture. Has there been any processing done? I've only had a chance to get a couple of images and I struggle to get much of the comet and tail visible due to the comet setting in twilight.

[Phil Hart]

I'm feeling for you! A trip to ~Bathurst tonight should give anyone in Sydney a reasonable chance but a bit harder from Newcastle :(



The trees I had planned.. the cows were a bonus.. quite cooperative!



Shooting with a 300mm lens gets a lot more detail than a wider lens. A bit of contrast in Lightroom but nothing extreme. Tail detail looks similar on camera.

[colinmlegg]

You're getting some nice colour in the Vic skies. What time was this taken?

[Larryp]

Very nice!

[ReaPerMan]

I love the Sunset colours. Excellent picture and composition.

[Phil Hart]

I'd been noticing the difference in our twilight colours too. This was 9:08pm, about 70 mins after local sunset. Skies were about as clear as they get for summer here and this is from the southern edge of Mornington Peninsula. Of course the effect of using a telephoto lens makes the zone of colour seem much larger.

What white balance settings do you use on yours (eg for 'two comets in the west')? This one was with temp of 3850 and tint of +5 in lightroom?

Phil

[swannies1983]

Thanks for answering my question Phil. However, I do note that several others are getting some nice detail even at much shorter focal lengths.

Also, I notice my twilight sky tends to be "grey" more than the nice blue you and others are getting. Maybe my white balance isn't quite right? I will need to look over it when I get home.

Do you shoot in RAW mode or jpg? I don't do much wide field imaging (mostly deep sky) so it's all a bit new to me.

[Solar]

Dont care what colour the sky is 10/10:thumbsup:

[iceman]

Amazing panorama for such a long FL!
Were you on a tracking mount?

Beautiful work!

[colinmlegg]

Similar white balance, Phil. My blues are all over the shop, though. Your colours are certainly more saturated... in a nice way. I might send you a message to compare processing. Love the shot, btw.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Mike. I had two mounts setup further along the road but they just captured the comet alone. This one was just on a tripod.. had to be mobile to move to just the right spot. I had debated trying to do the panorama on a tracking mount but figured that was trying to do too much.

EDIT - should add that the images taken any later than this one became too much of a compromise.. star trails or very noisy. will be processed some day in the future..

[Phil Hart]

Your images have a distinctive feel (not just the comet ones). Send me a RAW file and I'd love to see how it looks with my approach.

I've pulled brightness of the sky down a bit and increased contrast which has the effect of increasing saturation. I haven't actually touched the vibrance/saturation sliders on this one.

Phil

[Phil Hart]

Maybe it's about timing.. catching it a bit later when sky background is darker? Pulling down sky brightness and increasing contrast a bit should help?

[leon]

Absolutely stunning Phil, probably one of the best i have seen in a long time, not to say the others here are not beautiful.

Leon

[geoffsims]

I never noticed the cow in the Facebook version... arghhh... it's even better than I first thought! :)

Clearest day in weeks here in Sydney - but clouds low on the western horizon... we'll see what happens in an hour or so.

[gregbradley]

Gorgeous image Phil. Really well executed.

I did not know Panstarrs is visible after sunset, I thought it was a early morning comet.

6D is working nicely there with very low noise albeit at only ISO800.

Was this with the Pentax 300 F4 EDIF? That lens is special.

Greg.

[MortonH]

Yup, no chance for me now.

I saw this image on my phone on the way home and was very impressed. Now that I see it on my monitor - just gorgeous!

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Greg. I was surprised by how quick it transitioned from morning to evening, but yes that's where it is now. Not with us in the south for much longer.

I can push the shadow details on the 6D better than I could on a 5DII with some of my images from last night. So in that respect it is looking good.

And yes.. the Pentax lens. lovely piece of glass.. does the job on shots like this.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Morton, Geoff, Leon et al.. great to know you're enjoying it almost as much i enjoyed capturing it. nothing like a comet chase to get the adrenalin pumping!

Phil

[phobos]

oh... wow! really beautiful capture.

[alexch]

Very nicely done, Phil! Great skill making the panorama in such a short window of opportunity.

Cheers,
Alex

[Ross G]

A beautiful photo Phil.

Ross.

[trek1701]

As I’m new to this field of photography I shall try this when I get home, as I was doing the opposite.:rolleyes:
I was increasing brightness and reducing contrast.
I guess it’s just another reason what make this hobby so interesting.
Mark

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Alex. As you suggest, images like this often aren't as easy as they look. I was surprised by how short the window of opportunity was too and only just got it right (I almost messed around with the mounts further up the road for too long). I have ~3 other pano sequences shot later but a lot of trailing (which might be ok at web graphic size) and/or not enough exposure.

Sunday might have been my last attempt though.. I'm tied up other nights this week and would struggle to keep functioning with another late night anyway!

Phil