I had tried on two earlier evening to photograph the Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks without even seeing it. My observing location was the bridge over the railway line at Dulwich Hill Station. The first of the night was not that clear, but the second was, and I concluded that the comet was probably behind some trees. So I tried a different observing location – on the foreshore at Leichhardt where I could get a much better view to the west.
This time I was successful. But the photos are poor. You can see the comet – but not much of its tail. In the photo above – it is the higher object – the pale green one.
The photo below shows some nearby stars –
And here is a view from Stellarium showing the comet and its position relative to the background stars.
The comet was viewed in a poor city location with an almost full Moon. I may be able to try again in a darker sky.
I could not see the comet with the naked eye, or with binoculars. My reference to locate the comet was Jupiter – but that had set when I arrived at the observing location. But I could use Stellarium for my mobile phone to locate where it had set – and point my camera close to that position. The comet was seen on my camera LCD screen after I had taken a photo -and enlarged the view. It was still very faint.
Details – 135 mm lens used. f 1.8, Exposure 1/5 second in first photo and 2.5 seconds in the second, 800 ISO. The photos are heavily cropped.
Hi David,
I’m not sure if its my browser but the photos that you upload, I cannot see it and gives a broken link for all the images.
Regards
Yes – it is a problem at my end – with the security settings for photos. You need to try a different browser, or if using Chrome – try changing some of the security settings.