Comet McNaught

[DaveDn]

Any comments or critique would be greatly appreciated on the image of Comet NcNaught a took last night from Dunedin NZ. Digital is great for this type of work.

Cheers
Dave

link:
Comet McNaught

[DaveDn]

Try this link without the extra http :-)

Comet McNaught

[jeffball]

Hello Dave,
That is very lovely.  Unfortunately, our weather in West Virginia did not cooperate at all during the comet's brief northern hemisphere showing.  I am really enjoying the views through the lenses of others.  I would probably level the water line.  Thanks for sharing.  

Try this link without the extra http :-)

Comet McNaught
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[wolfnowl]

Nicely done!  If I was going to be really picky I'd remove the 2 (house?) lights on the lower right, but again, really good work.

Mike.

[dobson]

The tail is really very visible in this shot. It must have been amazing to see. The comet was very low in the horizon when the sun finally set here in Wahington.

Here's a photo I took of the comet setting over Mount Skokomish in Olympic National Park. This was taken on the 11th from a neighbor's backyard. The sky behind the comet never really darkened up for us here.

[attachment=1587:attachment]

Phillip

[suethomo]

Hi Dave,

Great shot - I think I saw your image in the ODT?  It inspired me to go and have a shot.  I am in Wanaka and tried to get a decent shot but could not get the tail exposed.  I radically changed exposure in RAW format and ended up with a lot of noise.   What shutter speed did you use.  My lens only had f6.3 and 300mm and I used 15 seconds at ISO 400.  Perhaps I should have used a higher ISO and less shutter speed.  Also what time of evening did you shoot?  Whatever you did I could not emulate!!

Cheers

Thomo

http://www.pbase.com/suethomo2003/inbox

[suethomo]

Hi
I have just noticed your iceberg photos - did you take one from a helicopter of a fixed wing aircraft one day - I was the pilot of the fix-wing (Cessna Caravan).  Looking at the shape of the berg you must have been there at a similar time.

Regards

Carl

[DaveDn]

I was using a:
Canon 1D Mark2
70-200 f2.8 L IS
4 sec exposure @ ISO 1000

I think the extra lens speed helps. I also cleaned up the image with noise ninja which also helps.

If you look at the second comet image on my website wwww.magiclight.co.nz under landscapes. I used a different technique here. From my astrophotography days. I took 4 images, exposures ranging from 30 sec to 4minutes. I then stacked and averaged them using Registax. This enables me to record the fainter tail without blowing out the highlights in the comet head. The camera was piggy backed on a tracking telescope.

Yes, icebergs - amazing! I hung out the door of a chopper to take these.