Finally, an evening that was relatively free of clouds. during the past few evenings, I had ventured outside around 8:30 pm to see what the south western sky was like to see if it was worth a walk to Dulwich Hill Station an try and photograph Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) again. On the previous successful attempt, I had not seen the comet until I got home and checked photos on the computer. My photo was very disappointing. And that’d been taken just before a big bank of clouds rolled in.
This evening turned out a lot better.
The above photo clearly shows the comet. This is cropped and post processed from a photo like the one below –
The one above is uncropped, and was taken using a 135 mm f 1.8 lens (0.5 second, f 1.8, 1600 ISO, taken at 9:05 pm).
All the photos were taken at Dulwich Hill Station which offers a fair view to the south west.
I could not see the comet with the naked eye, nor wit the aid of binoculars. I could just make it out on the rear LCD panel of the camera. I had used Stellarium to know the rough position of the comet in the evening sky.
The photo below is cropped and was taken 5 minutes later, just before the head of the comet entered a small cloud layer. (1 second, f 1.8, 1600 ISO)
It was pleasing to finally get some better photos of this comet from the terribly light polled skies of Sydney.