Comet NEOWISE, named after the telescope that discovered it, was visible to the naked eye at peak visibility mid July 2020 in the north eastern sky between 3:30 to 4:30am. The last comet I saw was Haley’s in 1986 as a wee lass. So I was keen to snap me a nice photo. A fair bit of planning and a whole lot of luck resulted in quite a nice pay off. But this was not with out a bit of drama. To get this shot I decided a nice composition would be overlooking a lake in Algonquin. This was during Covid, but the provincial park was open and so too were some hotel establishments able to accommodate physical distancing.

I asked the Lodge to put us in a cabin facing north-ish. We had our own private jetty overlooking the Lodge canoe beach. Couldn’t be better!

The apps I used to plan this shot were: Photopills, StarWalk, MeteoEarth, Google Maps and Google Earth.

When Magic Happens

With thunderstorms and rain all night, I figured I had Buckley’s chance of seeing comet Neowise. I was anxiously up since midnight periodically checking the skies.
As luck would have it, the clouds parted at 4am on cue, just enough to make for a very pretty composition indeed.
Specs: Sony a7RIII, 85mm prime, F1.4
f2.8, iso 2500, 2s

Local scenery around Algonquin in the Summer time. We drove up and down Highway 60 for over 250km over two days looking for moose. Guess I should stick to landscapes and astro - there are no apps for moose!