Comet PanSTARRS | John Dolby

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Photographer:

John Dolby

Location of Photo:

Tucson, AZ, USA

Date/Time of photo:

2013-Mar-10 19:22 MST

Equipment:

Canon Rebel XT, 190mm lens, f/5.6, 0.8-sec., ISO-800, tripod.

Description:

This is about what the comet looked like through 8x56 binoculars. But it is deceiving because it did not look like this to the unaided eye! It was a fun experience because it was nothing like I expected. I thought I would wait until dark and get some wide-angle camera shots because I was expecting it to be larger. I was planning to take a series of 10-second exposures and stack them. But the comet was so low on the horizon that it didn't wait for dark. After finding it in binoculars, I zoomed in with the camera lens and took pictures that were less than a second of exposure length. It was much easier than I thought it was going to be, and the comet was nice and bright. But it was so small, I never would have seen it without binoculars.