Oh no not more McNaught.

[acropolite (Phil)]

The rains cleared and the clouds moved away just enough to allow a decent view of the comet. The tail spanned at least 14 degrees (twice that of my binos. HRH Liz was very excited and stayed for around an hour with the binos until the clouds moved back in. My imaging efforts were a little ordinary, but I managed to get a few reasonable shots. I made the mistake of taking the 50-200 lens, whereas the 17-70 would have been better suited and in my haste didn't use long exposure noise reduction or mirror lockup. Still there's always tomorrow.

[davidpretorius]

yes, it was something special, you have captured it beautifully!

[Scorpius (Dave)]

Hi I have just posted a slide show of my meagre efforts at capturing the comet

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~mar.dav/c2006p1.html

will take you it. Clear Skies...

[leon]

At least you saw and imaged it Dave, that's more than some folk, some haven't even laid eyes on it yet

Cheers Leon

[RB (Andrew)]

Nice captures Phil, the first one is my favourite.
Well composed and gives a great sense on scale.

I had a look at the exif data on your photo and it's as follows:

ISO 200, f/5, 70mm, 5 sec exp, auto WB, sRGB, shutter priority.

If you'll have another go at it tonight, may I suggest you try the following:

Change your colour space to AdobeRGB on both camera and imaging software.
Change White Balance to "White Fluorescent light" (4000k)
Change to Aperture Priority
If it's getting dark, use ISO 400

and as you said use Mirror Lock & In Camera N/R
Give at least 3 sec for mirror L/U to settle down.

If you use the 17-70mm go one or two stops up from wide open.
Try it in Portrait format to get all the tail (at around 50mm)

Give theses a go and see how you go.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Thanks for the recipe.
I'm collecting them so I can modify them to suit my feeble Canon Powershot. Gotta get at least one good piccie.