Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look (Shannon Calvert)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Auriga (Aur) · Contains: Solar system body or event

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look, Shannon Calvert

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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look

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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look

Finally got a clear night (sort of) after several days of people reporting a naked eye comet. It was supposed to be overcast all night, and I wasn't planning to got out at all, but I was working really late and checked again at 2:30am to find that the forecast had improved to clearing before dawn. It looked cloudy outside, but I wasn't super tired, so why not stay up a few more hours and give it a shot? There are no clear horizons anywhere around my house, so I drove to Westport... through dense fog! Sure enough, the sky began to clear as I arrived, and and I setup my little Star Adventurer mount inside the 30' observatory tower to get above some of the taller trees. The hazy sky precluded a naked eye view, but Capella was obvious and Menkalinan was just barely visible, so I used those stars as a guide to find Neowise, and it was surprisingly well clear of the trees when I thought it hadn't cleared the horizon.

In my haste, I mistakely set my still-unfamiliar new camera to f/13, so it took 45 seconds to get a decent exposure. The Star Adventurer saved my butt and held the tracking even with a full frame camera and heavy 100-400mm lens, and I only had to replace the blurred foreground with sharper trees from another shot. Very exciting to get a first look at the brightest comet since Hale-Bopp!

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3677575
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look

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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) first look

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