A 120° panorama of the bright display of noctilucent clouds at dawn on July 7, 2020 from southern Alberta, with the bonus of Comet NEOWISE amid the clouds. Venus is at right, reflected in the slough. The NLCs appeared low on the horizon at first then expanded upwards as the Sun angle below the horizon decreased and more of the clouds lit up. They extended about as far up as shown here, so never reached very high, unlike two mornings earlier when they extended past the zenith. This is a panorama of 8 segments with the 50mm Sigma lens at f/2.8 for 2.5 seconds each and the Canon 6D MkII at ISO 100. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw. I shot this from my favourite spiot near home I call Solstice Pond as I often shoot NLCs and solstice twilight scenes here. Though this morning it was more like Solstice Slough. There are some ducks in the distance.
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) low in the northeastern sky at dawn on July 7, 2020 with it amid bright noctilucent clouds this morning and over a prairie pond. Even so, the tail is visible. So this is a juxtaposition of an icy comet amid icy clouds. This is a stack of 6 exposures for the ground to smooth noise and a single 1-second untracked shot for the sky, all with the 135mm telephoto at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 400
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 star 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. And as if that were not enough, the International Space Station flew over and away to the east in the scene here to the right of Venus, fading as it flew away. In all, this was one of the most amazing morning sky scenes I have seen. This was from home in Alberta at about 4:00 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.
