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.
Comet PanSTARRS (C/2017 T2) passing near the bright galaxy pair Messier 81 (below) and Messier 82 (above) in Ursa Major on the night of May 23/24, 2020. This was the comet that in predictions from autumn 2019 was supposed to have been the highlight of May 2020, perhaps reaching naked-eye brightness, or at least be bright enough to be good for binoculars. It was visible in 15x70 binoculars this night but quite faintly as a fuzzy spot near the brighter galaxies, so about magnitude 8 at best. Comets SWAN and ATLAS for a time usurped this comet for publicity in spring 2020 but also largely failed to perform, certainly not reaching naked eye brightness. This is a stack of 8 x 8-minute exposures with the William Optics RedCat astrograph at f/4.9 (250mm focal length) and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 1600, median stacked. Guided on stars — so, yes, the comet has trailed somewhat but it is not noticeable at this image scale and the motion was in the direction of the comet length. The field here is about 8° x 5°, similar to binoculars. North is up.
The much heralded Comet SWAN (aka C/2020 F8) makes it appearance in my morning dawn sky at my northern latitude after putting on a show in the southern skies. However, it doesn’t look or photograph like much as it is low and lost in the early dawn twilight. It is the small fuzzy green spot left of centre. It will climb higher but dawn is also coming on sooner as we approach summer solstice. So this comet will never be well-placed for northern latitude observers. This is a stack of 4 x 30-second exposures at ISO 400 with the William Optics RedCat 51mm f/5 astrograph and Canon EOS Ra, giving a focal length of 250mm and a field 8° by 5°. The comet was in Triangulum at this time, but moving northward.
