Pan Starrs Comet

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So then, who's managed to catch a glimpse or even grab a great snap????

My quest as it happend:

Monday 11th - Perfect weather, freezing cold field, saw nothing or just missed it

Wednesday 13th - Weather looked good, scaled a hill West of Aberdeen, but a huge snow storm cloud moved in around sunset over the western view and refused to blow away. Managed to snap the following shot though.

Friday 15th - Same location as wednesday, but there were plenty of whispy clouds in the way. A rain cloud came overhead so I popped back towards the car near the road and stood by a farm gate to see out the remaining light. Then something just, and only just, caught my eye

 

[shadow_boxer]

Great shot, that looks fantastic. Overcast here so havent seen anything yet!

 

[Rojin]

Nice

I've heard that with the mark one eyeball you don't see that much but when you get the shot back home you're surprised with what you captured?

 

[munge]

I live in the boonies in Wiltshire with no ambient light, any idea how far south and for how long it's visible? And which direction?

Good catch and good perseverance. Imagine if you'd not had that last look before getting in the car, you'd never have known!

 

[munge]

Double post

 

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Nice

I've heard that with the mark one eyeball you don't see that much but when you get the shot back home you're surprised with what you captured?

Cheers

I was a bit shocked how hard it was to see with the eyeball. But one of my contacts is out of prescription so that certainly didn't help.

I fired off some longer exposures but they looked pants as it moved quite quickly across the sky. By the time I'd setup, figured this out, taken some more shots, it was getting darker and required the ISO to be up around 3200 at F4-5.6.

Looking forward to comet ISON later in the year which should be brighter.

I live in the boonies in Wiltshire with no ambient light, any idea how far south and for how long it's visible? And which direction?

Good catch and good perseverance. Imagine if you'd not had that last look before getting in the car, you'd never have known!

Yeah, soo lucky. I just wanted to get off the hill as it was pretty dark by then and the descent was pretty treacherous anyway. I just stuck around to make sure I hadn't missed it with light still in the sky.

You need to look to the West. Yesterday it was located near the horizon if you took a straight line from the moon downwards to a 4/5 o'clock position.

The advice online universally said how the best time was 40-60mins after sunset (18:10) but I didn't see it until 20:29 where it was visible above the mountains until 20:55. There were clouds to contned with, which had obviously blocked the comet from my view at the best times.

 

[NickK]

Nice images - I caught it with binos. I tried to catch it with the scope+camera but fiddling to get the right exposure resulting in it being behind the trees :/