Saturday, January 20, 2007

Comet pics

I've been out taking pics of the comet most nights, and these two have come out pretty well:





(No digital manipulation - these are straight out of the camera.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simon,
Those are great and make up for my inability to see them from Tasmania. Thanks,
Priya

Anonymous said...

fantastic we have digital camera and can see but hope to take photos as good as these Michelle from Bungendore NSW

Simon Haynes said...

I used a digital with manual settings - I set the aperture wide open, used 200 or 400 asa equivalent and then tried timed exposures of 10, 15, 25 seconds. You really need the long exposure to pick up the feathered tail, because it's not visible with the naked eye.
(As a guide, both pics were taken in almost complete darkness. The light on the trees came from distant street lamps, and you could barely see them in the darkness. I couldn't see the comet on the camera's screen at all, and had to take a pic, aim the camera, take a pic, etc, until I got it where I wanted it.)

Anonymous said...

What time did take them. I went out tonight at 10pm and couldn't see it.

Simon Haynes said...

8:30 to 9pm roughly. It would have gone down by 10pm, although I just came in from taking a few more pics tonight.

It's visible later and later every day, but it's also fainter.