Comet Neowise
Looking west from the Batchellorville Bridge, Edinburgh, NY.
During July of 2020, I went out twice to attempt to photograph Comet Neowise. COVID-19 had really shut things down in New York State, and I didn’t do a lot of photography in 2020. But thinking back to the spectacularly bright displays of Comet Hyakutake (dubbed “The Great Comet of 1996”), and especially Comet Hale-Bopp (“The Great Comet of 1997” and visible to the eye for 18 months), I was determined to at least try to get a shot of Comet Neowise.
My original idea was to get a shot during sunset, knowing that Neowise was visible toward the NW around then. I knew from a previous attempt to photograph from the Batchellorville Bridge in Edinburgh, NY, that traffic generally shook the bridge and that there would be too much vibration and wind interference to get a steady tripod shot of the Great Sacandaga Lake, the mountains and sunset. So I thought I’d try to locate my tripod directly above one of the huge pilings that support the bridge, and sure enough, that eliminated the vibration, and I was now there on the windless night of July 15, 2020.
Comet Neowise, July 15, 2020, from Batchellorville Bridge, Edinburgh, NY. Nikon Z7, 200-500mm f5.6 F-mount lens @ 500mm, ISO 6400, f5.6, 4 secs.
In case you’re unfamiliar with comets, they are balls of frozen ice and gases, with rock and dust embedded within. They have highly eccentric (extremely elliptical or “non-circular”) orbits around the Sun, and so spend large lengths of time in the outer Solar System moving slowly, then speed up as they are pulled toward the Sun. The Sun’s emitted radiation and particles excite the frozen materials of the comet and as they are vaporized and released they glow and are pushed in the direction directly away from the Sun. Therefore, as the comet moves toward the Sun, the tail created is more or less “behind” the comet along its speedy path. As the comet passes the point closest to the Sun, or perihelion, it is at it’s brightest, though it is now often behind the Sun as viewed from Earth. After perihelion, the comet begins to lessen in brightness and tail length as it travels away from the Sun. Perhaps “tail” isn’t the best word to use, because now it will be more or less in front of the comet as it travels away from the Sun.
Well it turns out that the comet had already passed perihelion, was now moving away from the Sun, and getting too dim to be photographed during sunset. It was also below the horizon around sunset. I didn’t know these things at the time. All I knew was I couldn’t see it at all for about the first hour I looked from my vantage point on the bridge.
I thought my big telephoto lens might help me find the comet in the dark sky. So once it got pretty dark and the stars were out, I put my 500mm lens on the tripod. I started to scan the night sky, hoping I might see some faint tail. I did find a tail, and it was surprisingly bright! I had been looking in slightly the wrong direction before, and now, when I looked with just my eyes, I could see the comet and tail just above the horizon. The image at right shows the view of Neowise at this point.
Even an average comet is still spectacular to behold on a beautiful evening, against a backdrop of the Milky Way.
The Sacandaga River as viewed from Route 30, north of Northville, NY. Nikon Z7, 70-200mm f4 @ 135mm, ISO 64, f8, 1/80 sec.
About a week later I thought I should make one more try to capture the comet at sunset (I still hadn't realized that was no longer possible). I tried to think of a spot that had a nice foreground with a view toward where the comet should be in sky. So I ventured out to a favorite local spot along the Sacandaga River, along Route 30 north of Northville (now that's north!) and south of Wells, NY. At this spot the Sacandaga makes a picturesque S-curve, northwest of the highway.
At first I tried to use my 70-200 lens vertically, but soon realized the comet was again not visible anywhere. So I reoriented my camera L-plate horizontally and made a horizontal landscape shot of the river while the light was good (see image). Nikon Z7, 70-200mm f4 F-mount lens @ 135mm, ISO 64, f8, 1/80 sec.
Comet Neowise, July 25, 2020, as viewed from the Sacandaga River along Route 30. Nikon Z7, 200-500mm f5.6 F-mount lens @ 500mm, ISO 25,600, f5.6, 2 sec.
Then I decided to go back to my truck and get the big lens again, since I knew as it got dark this lens would be needed to capture the comet. I heard strange noises along the way but couldn't figure out what they were or where exactly they were coming from.
On my way back to the river, I sat on a very long, solid, rectangular guardrail for a few minutes to enjoy the moment, hugging my tripod. Even though Route 30 is a state highway, it can be surprisingly quiet and peaceful, as there are long periods between vehicles and it's a wild area. While sitting there, I heard the noises again. I still had no clue what it could be. Then, I felt it and heard it. Whatever it was, it was inside of the guardrail, which was many hundreds of feet long in both directions. There was an animal inside it. I spent a few minutes thinking about the plight of this poor critter that seemed quite likely to be confused and afraid in there, but also realized there wasn't much I could do to help.
I set up my tripod on a gravel bank along the river, leveled the head, and once the Sun went down, I scanned the night sky, and behold, I found Neowise once again! It was now substantially less bright, so I set the ISO to 25,600, because I wanted to keep the shutter speed as short as possible to avoid star streaking due to Earth rotation (see image). Neowise had now started to remind me of meteors I’ve seen (though not moving) in that it was a bright shade of green (most meteors I’ve photographed had orange heads and green tails).