Home Forums Gear Photography The Comet Lovejoy

I have been hoping to get a decent shot at the Comet Lovejoy that is with us here for a few more weeks, well visible anyway. I tried when they said it was most visible but you couldn't see a tail really. On EarthSky.org is a chart on where to look. I finally got a decent one last night. I shot with the Tamron SP 150-600mm lens on a Sony NEX-7 via an adapter, Manual Mode, wide open, 6 seconds, 16,000 ISO. Once I located the comet with binos, I set up the camera, did a shot at 150mm to get it centered, then zoomed in increments until I reached 600mm. Little noisy straight out of the camera but nothing that Lightroom couldn't get rid of really. Nothing great, but it is the best comet photo I have...

Cool!

Great work!

Cool shot. Did you try exposing for fewer seconds to reduce the star tailing? 600/600mm does not give much time, 1sec, if one uses the 600 rule. I have found 600 gives some trailing and prefer dividing the focal length into 400.

I did try several different exposures. You could see the green at slower exposures but the tail disappeared.

Great shot!

Thanks!