[StephenM (Stephen)]

Hi all,

I've just returned from 3 weeks visiting family in Tasmania, and for much of the time I was without an internet connection. Fortunately, however, I was able to have a quick look at IIS late on Boxing Day, and I found out about Comet Lovejoy! I was also lucky to have fairly clear pre-dawn skies for the next 3 mornings, and I was staying about 20km east of Hobart with reasonably dark sky (at least relative to Brisbane!).

I know there's been lots of other brilliant images of this comet posted over the last couple of weeks (many of which I'm yet to look at closely), but I thought I'd also post my two best ones. The first was taken pre-dawn on the 27th December, and the second was on the 29th December. The tail was noticably fainter on the 29th, but i like this image because I also captured a nice bright meteor in the same field of view as the comet. Both images are 30 sec exposures with my 50D at 1600 iso and 35mm f/2 lens at f/2. The naked eye view was stunning, similar in appearance to these images.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,
Stephen