Tag: comet

Got Comet?

Timothy Price40 Comments

Full Moon behind clouds and Resa’s Tree

I tried to get the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet the last few nights. It should have been in the top third, just right of center, but I could only see a few stars and wormy-looking clouds.

Letting sleeping cats lie

We’ve had a lot of wind the past few days—ripply water on the Rio Grande.

Sunset

Late breaking news. As Tristan was leaving tonight, she noticed “fireworks” to the north of us. The fireworks were the wind blowing the neighbor’s tree branches in the powerlines, causing them to arc. I called the fire department, and they sent three fire trucks to check it out. The wind died down by the time the fire department arrived, so they didn’t get to see the show, but they could see where the branches had been arcing on the powerlines. The power company is supposed to come out after they finish restoring a power outage and trim back the branches.

No Comet Seen Tonight

Timothy Price42 Comments

The comet was supposed to be close to Mars tonight. Using three different cameras, various exposures, and binoculars, I did not see a comet near Mars.

The above image was from the live sky on SkySafariWeb. The image below is from Celestron’s website. I’m in MST, which was 7:00 PM when the above photos were taken.

The night sky with whispy clouds from a couple of nights ago.

We got a dusting of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.

Clouds over the Sandias before sunset on Wednesday afternoon.

Sunset on Wednesday evening.

Allusive Green

Timothy Price43 Comments

Using apps that showed me where the Green Comet should have been, I photographed the night sky in hopes of getting some sort of sighting. Between the 94% full moon and general light pollution, the Greeny is too faint to see. I’ll try again on the 10th when Greeny will be close to Mars and the moon with come up late.

Western Skies with Neowise

Timothy Price64 Comments

Tristan texted Laurie last night that she could see Neowise in the western sky. We went out to look, but we could not see it. I got the binoculars, and Laurie finally found it. It showed up very well in the binoculars. Tristan said it was directly below the bottom star in the big dipper. The comet makes up the apex on an equilateral triangle with two stars from Ursula Major, I believe. You can read more about how to see Neowise at https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-to-see-comet-neowise/

I dragged out a tripod, got focused on the Big Dipper, turned off autofocus, pointed my leans in the general direction of the comet, and check shots until I saw it on the screen. There were clouds in the eastern skies that were reflecting the city’s light making it so we could not see the comet with our naked eyes. After we found where the comet was, focusing on it was a real challenge. I can’t simply set the lens on infinity and shoot like I could with the old manual focus lenses. These photos give you a decent idea of what it looked like.