this comet in the sky

Bolerus

Bolerus

Bolerus

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Stoke on Trent
after seeing somebody out last night, I looked up to see a reasonably clear sky and wondered if I could see the commet that is on the news, and low and behold there it was (or at last it looked like a bright star with a trail - may have been seeing something that wasnt there)

throught a 70-300 lens it looked like, a dandelion seed thingy

what would be the correct settings to catch it on film (or at least on digital sensor lol)

I tried the same settings as a moon shot and got nothing at all (did get a nice moon though when I tested my setttings on the moon itself)
 
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Messiah Khan said:
Yeah, it apparently has become massivly brighter than before. :) Shame about light pollution around here though.:(
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OMGWTF It's coming towards us! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!:eek:


On a more serious note I didn't realise either, is it a comet that comes past regularly or something else?

Shame I don't have use of a camera at the moment.:(

As for settings, something like ISO100-200 and a wide open aperture, then experiment with the exposure time which will probably be around the couple of seconds mark, which means you will need a tripod and maybe a remote release. :)

Just found a thread about it over on TP with a couple of links:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10775326.html
http://comets.skyhound.com/
 
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As I understand it's still deep in the asteroid belt and was first discovered over 100 years ago. It's thought that it's suddenly because bright due to release of gas from inside it which is reflecting the light from the sun.

I had a look around the sky last night but couldn't see anything.
 
Having read the link above it seems that rather than gas it is majorly dust that has caused the brightning this time, so it should stay bright for a long time yet (as the gas would be blown away quickly but dust stays for a lot longer).
 
Yeah it is, saw it earlier for the first time when I managed to finally get somewher out of town. :)
 
Get yourself to a remote, dark place, out in the country where no street lamps produce orange glow in the sky.

Mount your camera on a Tripod, open up the aperture to the widest setting, 400 is a good allround iso setting for astrophotography.

Take a large piece of card with you and a cable release. Place the card infront of the lens, fire your shutter open on the b setting, wait a few secs to be 100% sure the camera has stopped all vibration, then remove the card from the front. Same goes for the end of the exposure. Flick the card infront (obviously this is done without touching the cam or lens with the card) and instantly after that close the shutter.

Play with exposures. You will need to run quite a long exposure generally to record the faint light from the stars etc. Start with 10 secs and work your way up in 5's

Very long exposures will show the earths motion. You can also point the camera to the North star, (polaris) get it in the center of your field and shoot a 30 min exposure. This is a good thing to try because the stars will record as long lines which show their true colours far better than a single point of light.

If you shoot the comet for a good lengthy exposure you'll see its motion is different to that of the background stars.

The longer the lens the better but the more you magnify the sturdier the mount needs to be, also the stars start moving outside of the frame much faster. Usually you'd 'piggyback' your camera to a telescopes equatorial mount, or go one better and get an adaptor to use the telescope as the lens.

I was right into astrophotography years ago with film but my scopes got nicked out of the shed and i lost the will to start again.

Its great fun to shoot the stars, planets and other heavenly bodies :D
 
Good advice but I would change a couple of bits, I would say ISO 100/200 is a better bet than 400 now. You already have to worry about long exposure noise without adding extra noise with a higher than necessary ISO, 100 is just fine for star trails. With exposures in the minutes it is pretty essential to turn on "long exposure noise reduction" (for DSLR's) as it will reduce the noise significantly without reducing the image quality, unlike post processing which will soften and remove detail. Card wise I don't really think it is necessary for exposures of more than a few tens of seconds as the amount of light hitting the sensor in the time that the camera may shake will be negligable, but that is a matter opinion. The other option instead of card is to lock the mirror up before taking the shot, thus reducing any vibration to almost nil.
 
Amp34 said:
Good advice but I would change a couple of bits, I would say ISO 100/200 is a better bet than 400 now. You already have to worry about long exposure noise without adding extra noise with a higher than necessary ISO, 100 is just fine for star trails. With exposures in the minutes it is pretty essential to turn on "long exposure noise reduction" (for DSLR's) as it will reduce the noise significantly without reducing the image quality, unlike post processing which will soften and remove detail. Card wise I don't really think it is necessary for exposures of more than a few tens of seconds as the amount of light hitting the sensor in the time that the camera may shake will be negligable, but that is a matter opinion. The other option instead of card is to lock the mirror up before taking the shot, thus reducing any vibration to almost nil.
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I've not long since moved to digital with a 20D so i can put these tips into practice. Infact i think they'll be especially good tips for shooting highly magnified planets, thanks for the onfo :D
 
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