Bright Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) rising in the northeast into the dawn sky on July 5, 2020, visible here as the small spot left of centre in the bright twilight. The northeast sky was also filled with noctilucent clouds (NLCs) that grew even more extensive this morning as the Sun angle below the horizon decreased and the NLCs lit up more to cover much of the sky. Venus is bright to the right, with the Pleiades start cluster above Venus. Capella is the bright star at top left. The comet is in a line directly down from Capella and just above the orange band of twilight. In all, this was one of the most amazing morning sky scenes I have seen. What’s more, just after I took this series, the International Space Station flew over. Another image captures that scene. This was from home in Alberta at about 3:57 am MDT under very clear skies. The comet had passed perihelion only a few days eariler and was emerging here into the dawn sky. This is a panorama of 4 segments at 1.6 seconds each with the 50mm Sigma lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 100. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.
Bright Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) rising in the northeast into the bright dawn sky on July 5, 2020. This was from home in Alberta looking toward the Wintering Hills Windfarm towers on the horizon. Fog lies in the low valleys. This was about 3:45 am MDT under very clear skies. A fabulous display of noctilucent clouds also appeared this morning. The comet had passed perihelion only a few days eariler and was emerging here into the dawn sky. This was with the 200mm telephoto and 1.4x Extender for 280mm focal length, untracked for 1.3 seconds at ISO 400 with the Canon 6D MkII. The ground is a stack of 5 exposures to smooth noise in the dark ground.
A panorama of the bright and extensive noctilucent clouds across the north on July 2, 2020 as shot from home in southern Alberta. Capella and the stars of Perseus are right of centre. This is a panorama of 10 segments shot with the 85mm Rokinon lens on the Canon 6D MkII camera at ISO 100 for 4 seconds each, and taken at 10° spacings which made it possible for Adobe Camera Raw to stitch the segments. The original is almost 30,000 pixels wide.
