An ice crystal halo around the first quarter Moon high in the northern winter sky, on January 27, 2015, taken from near Pinos Altos, New Mexico. The Pleiades is above and left of the Moo, the Hyades and Aldebaran at left. The green Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is on the lunar halo at top. This is a stack of two exposures, a 13 second exposure for the sky and halo and and 0.8 second exposure for the Moon itself, though it remains overexposed. However, its intensity is reduced by blending in the area of the Moon taken with a short exposure, with masking done via a luminosity mask. Both image with a 24mm lens at f/2.5 and Canon 6D at ISO 800 to minimize trailing on this tripod shot.
A telescopic closeup of Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) on January 19, 2015. I shot this from near Silver City, New Mexico, using a TMB 92mm apo refractor at f/4.4 and using a Canon 6D at ISO 1600 for a stack of 4 x 5 minute exposures. The ion tail is primarily from a single exposure to minimize blurring from the comet’s motion relative to the stars. The rest of the image is from the stacked combination to minimize noise.
Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) at upper right near the Pleiades, with its long blue ion tail stretching back to the left past the Pleiades. This wide-angle shot takes in a wide sweep from Orion at bottom left up to Auriga and Perseus at top. At centre is Taurus and the Taurus Dark Clouds of interstellar dust. Some high haze drifiting through added natural star glows but also some sky gradient tints. This is a stack of 9 x 2 minute exposures at f/2.8 with the 24mm lens and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600, on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer tracker. Taken from City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico, January 18, 2015.
