While I was in Tasmania I thought it worthwhile having another attempt to photograph the Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. Earlier, I had photographed the comet in Sydney and only obtained very poor results. Would the darker skies of Tasmania be better? They should be. And also – this time there would be no full Moon, and the comet would be higher in the sky – making it easier to see in the twilight. But, the comet would be further from the Sun – so a bit dimmer in intrinsic brightness.
Finding the comet –
I was limited in the lenses I had available. I used an f4 20-70 mm zoom lens fully open at f4. Here is a wide angle shot taken at 6:46 pm. It is a 15 second exposure at 3200 ISO, at 20 mm.
By looking carefully at the LCD screen on the back of the camera and zooming in and moving around, I soon located the comet. here indicted between the red bars –
More photos taken at 70 mm, f4, 6 seconds, 3200 ISO (and heavily cropped) –
The line on the photo above is a satellite. The photos below are similar –
I should have taken some more photos. I could have used my fungi macro lens which is 90 mm f 2.8, or the telephoto lens I used for birds.