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Kris Hazelbaker
Grangeville, Idaho, USA
09/06/2023
04:30 am

Equipment Details:

Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 200 mm lens, tripod

Post-processing Details:

This is about 3.5 minutes of exposure, taken 2 seconds at a time. I stacked those images in PixInsight, and made final tweaks in PaintShop Pro. The image is cropped to about 25% of the original.

Image Details:

I have been wanting to try for this comet, so had looked for it's current location in the sky (near the head of the constellation Leo). I used Stellarium to find out when it would be rising, and how long I would have before the Sun started brightening the sky. I had about a half hour window! I didn't take the time to set up my star tracker, so had to shoot short exposures to minimize star trails. I went outside about 4 am, and the eastern horizon was very hazy, and a bright Moon didn't help. I couldn't even see magnitude 3 Algenubi, near the comet. But I aimed my camera that direction, started shooting, and ended up with this. Definitely worth the early morning!