Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)–Evening Observations

November 3, 2024 / 2 Comments

A previous post showed many images of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) taken when the comet was visible in the morning sky. The comet then moved between the Earth and Sun making it difficult to see. A period of 10 days passed between my last morning images and my first evening images.

At first, the comet was difficult to see in the bright evening twilight and the presence of the Moon made it even more difficult. But each day the Moon rose later in the evening and the comet rose higher in the western sky. I was able to take advantage of clear skies and shot photographs on eight days. Here are some of the best photographs from those sessions.

13 October 2024

I had already shot images of the comet while looking to the east across Ashurst Lake when it was a morning object. Now it was time to shoot looking to the west across the Lake. The comet was very bright and easy to see. I also shot a long sequence of images to create a time-lapse video of the comet setting in the west.

Time-lapse video of the comet setting behind Ashurst Lake near Flagstaff, Arizona.

14 October 2024

The next evening I set up at the Arizona Snowbowl parking area–along with dozens of other comet watchers. It was fun to listen to folks admiring the comet and the joy from the kids when they were first able to spot it in the darkening sky. The anti tail was even easier to see on this night compared to the previous evening.

16 October 2024

The Moon was still a factor in the evenings but the comet was getting higher in the sky so it balanced out. On this evening I went to The Narrows at Upper Lake Mary since that section of the lake is oriented WSW-ENE. This meant I could photograph the comet above the water and get a reflection of it in the water. That worked out pretty well.

20 October 2024

A few days of clouds shut me down but by this day it was very clear and the Moon was no longer a problem. I opted to use a longer telephoto (180mm) for these shots even though it might truncate part of the tail. The anti tail is still visible but is much less striking than in earlier days.

21 October 2024

The comet was continuing to rise higher in the western sky and was closer to the Milky Way so I switched back to ultra-wide angle lenses to capture both. Bonus: I was able to again capture the comet and tail reflected in the waters of Lake Mary. For the very wide image shown here I did a composite. The first image had star tracking turned on to get sharp stars and comet; the second image had tracking off to get sharp foreground. These were then combined and blended in software.

Comet and Milky Way reflected in the still waters of Lake Mary.

23 October 2024

The comet continued to climb higher, become dimmer, and have a shorter tail as it moved away from Earth and Sun. I switched to a short telephoto (85mm) to shoot a sequence of images which were then stacked to reduce image noise. I was also able to use the sequence to create a short time-lapse video to show the movement of the comet over a period of about 45 minutes.

Time-lapse showing the motion of the comet against the background of stars. 23 October 2024.

25 October 2024

As the comet climbed higher it also was closer to the Milky Way and I again tried to get a shot with both features. This was taken with at 35mm focal length.

31 October 2024

As the comet retreats it is getting smaller in the sky and it is better to use medium length telephoto lenses. Here is an image taken with the Nikkor 180mm ED AI-S lens, a legacy, manual focus lens.

What’s next?

We are once again in a period of clouds. When skies are once again clear the comet will be much farther away, smaller, and dimmer. At this point, it will require longer exposures and bigger telephoto lenses. It should be fun!

Milky Way and a Fisheye Lens

June 11, 2024

I have taken countless photographs of the Milky Way using anything from ultrawide to telephoto lenses. But I have never taken a photograph of the Milky Way with a fisheye lens until now.

The Milky Way along with bands of airglow stretch across the eastern sky.

I like the result because it shows a large part of the Milky Way from south of the Galactic Center northward almost–but not quite–to Cassiopeia. Cygnus can be seen in the center.

As a bonus there is some banded airglow along the eastern horizon.

Milky Way with Reflections

July 18, 2023

Clear skies and light winds presented an opportunity to photograph the Milky Way with reflections in smooth water. Upper Lake Mary had the best orientation to look down the lake. In addition, accessing this lake is very easy with a parking lot just a short distance from where the image was taken. Finally, another factor is this past winter had a lot of snowmelt that filled the lake to capacity for the first time in several years.

Milky Way with reflections in Upper Lake Mary.

It’s interesting that the star colors are more saturated in the reflections compared to the sky.

The glow on the right is the light dome from Phoenix.

tau Herculids Meteor Shower

May 31, 2022

There were plenty of caveats associated with the tau Herculids meteor shower. It could be a full-blown meteor storm or it could be a total bust. But there was a third possibility; not a meteor storm but a shower, or maybe a drizzle.

View of the Milky Way and several tau Herculids meteors.

Cropped view of the three brightest tau Herculids meteors.

Of course I was hoping for the storm but was quite happy with the shower. I had a few ideas of how to shoot this but ended up going with the Keep It Simple concept. I ended up at a viewpoint on the west side of Mormon Lake and aimed the camera at the rising Milky Way.

A review of my images showed that I captured three very bright meteors and another six that were fairly dim. The first image is a composite of those images and shows the entire field of view from the ultra-wide 17mm lens. It has a field of view of 93° x 70°.

The next image is a tight crop of the three brightest meteors that also shows two dim meteors.

Time-lapse video of the three brightest tau Herculids meteors and some persistent smoke trails.

Finally, there is a time-lapse video of the three brightest showing the persistent smoke trails from two meteors.

It was a fun evening.

Edit: Fixed error in the field of view values.

Photographing the Milky Way and Cathedral Rock

March 16, 2022

We are entering Milky Way season—generally considered to be March through September in the northern hemisphere. In mid-March the Milky Way does not rise until well after midnight and the Galactic Center of the Milky Way is only about 25° degrees above the horizon by astronomical twilight.

The Milky Way and Galactic Center rise above Cathedral Rock. Venus and Mars are also visible just above the horizon and to the left of Cathedral Rock.

Accompanying the Milky Way was the waxing crescent Moon which was 77% illuminated on the morning of 13 March 2022. The Moon would set around 0413 MST and twilight did not start until 0516 MST.

The Milky Way is lower in the sky and is combined with a foreground image containing star reflections in the small pool of water.

What this means is that I could photograph the landscape with the Moon illuminating it and then an hour or so later capture the Milky Way after the Moon had set and the sky was very dark.

I arrived with bright moonlight illuminating Cathedral Rock. I positioned the camera so that I could get some star reflections in the small—very small—pool of water. I also shot images without the water—just expanses of undulating red rock with alternating patterns of light and shadow.

Having finished that part of the show I had to wait until the Moon was at least a few degrees below the horizon allowing the sky to become very dark.

The Galactic Center of the Milky was about 16° above the horizon at moonset—which was just barely above the high point of Cathedral Rock. That wasn’t really the shot I wanted so I waited until it got higher.

Just before and after astronomical twilight the Galactic Center had risen to about 25° above the horizon. I shot a few images before twilight began to wash out the stars in the eastern sky. As a bonus, I was also able to capture the planets Venus and Mars just above the horizon.

The foreground images were shot at ISO 800, ƒ/5.6 and ƒ/8, and 120 seconds exposure with LENR (long exposure noise reduction) turned on. The star images were shot at ISO 800, ƒ/5.6, and 300 seconds exposure with LENR. Star images were taken with the camera mounted on an iOptron SkyTracker mount.

Flagstaff Altitudes

Tag: Milky Way