A close-up of Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) on the night of July 14/15, 2020 with a 135mm telephoto lens, and cropped in somewhat. But the field is about 10° high and the white dust and blue ion tails extend across the frame and beyond it. Some of the banding structure in the dust tail is visible. VIsually in binoculars the ion tail was barely visible with a little averted imagination but the dust tail easily extended about two binocular fields, so about 12 °. This is a stack of nine 1-minute exposures with the 135mm Canon lens wide-open at f/2 and Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800. The camera was on the iOptron SkyGuider Pro tracker tracking the stars not the comet. Yes, the comet will have moved slightly against the background stars over the few minutes of the capture, but not enough to significantly blur detail at this image scale. I shot this about 12:45 am on July 15, 2020 from Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, latitude 51° N. The comet head was about 9° above the northern horizon. The Sun was 15° below the horizon, so still not astronomically dark. The comet was also low in the north and so I have added brightness and color adjustments with gradient masks to even out the background, as the sky was brighter toward the horizon at the bottom, plus the sky also had some faint aurora adding magenta casts toward the bottom. Automatic gradient removal didn’t do a good job in this case. Plus despite being the middle of the night the sky was still deep blue this low to the north due to perpetual summer twilight. But I’ve retained that sky tint. Stacked and aligned in Photoshop.
This is Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the badlands and formations of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on the night of July 14-15, 2020, at about 12:30 am local time with it nearly due north and as low as it got for the night at this latitude of 51° N. A green and magenta aurora colours the northern sky also blue with perpetual summer twilight. Capella is at far right. The comet’s dim blue ion tail is visible here extending some 18° to the top of the frame; the whitish curving dust tail extends about 12° though it becomes lost in the sky still bright with twilight and the aurora this night. This is a classic comet! Very much the dimmer twin of Comet Hale-Bopp from April 1997. This is a blend of 6 exposures for the ground stacked to smooth noise, with a single exposure for the sky, with the 35mm Canon lens and Canon 6D MkII. The ground exposures are 1- and 2-minutes at ISO 1600 and f/2.8, while the single untracked sky exposure was 20 seconds at ISO 3200 and f/2.5. There was no Moon, thus the need to take very long exposures for the ground to reveal details in the landscape here illuminated by just starlight and the faint aurora that was to the north and that was barely visible to the eye. Otherwise the ground would have been a featureless silhouette. So, yes, this image shows much more than the eye could see unaided due to the long exposures, but that’s the point and attraction of astrophotography — to record celestial objects and scenes with more detail than the eye can see. Indeed, any exposure longer than a second is bound to show more than the eye can detect. However, in binoculars the ion tail was barely visible, helped by knowing it was there. But the dust tail could be see to this extent, but in binoculars! However, the comet was still a fine sight naked eye, with an obvious tail about 5° to 6° long to the eye, despite the bright midnight sky. LENR employed in camera on all shots this warm night to remove thermal speckling and colour casts the 6D MkII is prone to. Stacked and masked with Photoshop. Topaz DeNoise AI applied to the sky; Topaz Sharpen applied to the ground, plus a mild touch of ON1 Photo RAW Dynamic Contrast.
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over some of the eroded hoodoo formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, July 14-15, 2020. A faint aurora is at right. The foreground is lit by starlight only; there was no light painting employed here. This is a stack of 12 exposures for the ground to smooth noise, blended with a single untracked exposure of the sky, all at 20 seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, all with the 35mm Canon lens and Canon 6D MkII camera. Taking lots of shots and stacking them allowed the foreground to be brightened without introducing too much noise and ugly banding artifacts the non-ISO invariant sensor of the 6D MKII is prone to. An alternative would have been to take a single very long (multi-minute) exposure at a lower ISO just for the ground, but even then stacking several would still be best. LENR employed on all shots on this warm night to eliminate thermal noise and speckling. ON1 Dynamic Contrast filter applied to the ground. Plus some dodging and burning applied to the ground using a neutral grey layer on Overlay blend mode to better sculpt the otherwise flatly lit foreground on this dark, moonless night. The sky is lit by twilight that is perpetual in summer at this latitude of 51° N.
