Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Auriga (Aur)
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer), AlenK
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer)
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Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer)

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer), AlenK
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer)
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Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer)

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

My intention on the morning of July 9 was to get at least 15 minutes on the comet within a window of opportunity spanning perhaps 30 before the sky brightened too much. I actually got barely 3 minutes of immediately usable frames, which are in this image, because of the muck near the horizon, a badly positioned cloud bank and difficulty choosing the correct ISO as the sky continually brightened.

I saturated the comet's nucleus in many shots that I did not include in this stack. However, with careful masking I could include them and pull more detail from the comet, in particular to better show the gas tail that is on the verge of being visible here.

Tracking was performed internally in the camera using the Astrotracer feature, with the lens mounted directly to a tripod.  The lens was stopped down to f/5.8 externally using a 77mm-to-52mm step-down ring. No darks, bias or flats.

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Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, July 9th, 2020 (Astrotracer), AlenK