Photographing Comet McNaught last night at Big Swamp South Australia.
Discovered by Australian Robert McNaught in August 2006.
Canon 5D
RAW converted in Breeze Browser Pro.
2007:01:22 21:42:10
24-105mm @ 24mm
30 sec, f/4
Mode: Manual
Metering: Evaluative
ISO: 800
AF mode: Manual Focus
Drive: Single frame shooting
Self-timer: 10 secs
White balance: Daylight
Flash: Off
File size: 10.8MB
Image size: 4368 x 2912
Color space: AdobeRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: 3
Contrast: Normal
Sharpness level: 3
Tone: Normal
Custom Functions:
CFn 2: Long exposure noise reduction: On
Thanks Guys
Why 24mm focal length?
Shot the week before with a 400mm and missed most of the tail. Wanted to give the comet a sense of scale/size by going wide and including the environment. Cheers John
Yes was cool to be DUGG and get 46,000 views on Flickr! also ran in Newspaper over here. Amazing amount of emails.
Im having fun with this shot!
Just sold it this morning to Discover Magazine USA to be published worldwide :) (they saw it on flickr and contacted me!!!!)
Two covers so far on magazines in Australia as well!
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 142 Avg (all users): 7.5228 Avg (commenters): 8.6000 Avg (participants): 7.3214 Avg (non-participants): 7.5838 Views since voting: 33901 Views during voting: 507 Votes: 241 Comments: 100 Favorites: 106 (view)
I couldn't see this comet very well from where I live, which is in southern New Mexico. I kept hearing reports about how spectacular it was and now I get to see it in this picture.
Beautiful photograph of the comet, love how you captured the tail. Congratulations on winning the blue ribbon and your other successes coming with the photo.
This night photo has a majestic ambience to it. The olny thing I believe could be left out is that white triangular point towards the bottom. It distracts the eye from the main focus.
I didn't vote for this one (or the sister "entrance" contest) but I am very glad this picture won. I think it deserves to appear in the Astronomy picture of the day site //antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
This is of coarse supurb! Extremely well done. I'm sure you'll sell many prints including to me. I'm very jealous. Tried to shoot it here but we got a rather unspactactular, barly visible show on the 'entrance' end. Congrats!!!
You're an 'effin' genius. What a kickass shot! Very likely the best shot I've seen of McNaught so far anywhere. Kinda surprised this didn't go 8+ really.
Nicely done!
You could probably submit this to the Nasa archives as well. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than up to snuff for their quality requirements.
Great shot, probably the best I've seen of it. I did shoot McNaught here in Iceland in the beginning of January. Seems like the tail is more round and bigger there down-under.
Congrats John, this shot is definitely better than what I have seen in print. Thought you might like this from the site favorites page. A well deserved blue.
This is simply AMAZING!! I envy your for seeing this but I appreciate you seeing this for us. Congrats on the moment and the recognition of a special photo.
COngrats and im glad im one of those 43 10's. You know i tried to have you DQ'd but i relaized the date might be out of my visible range but the southern hemisphere still can see it. SO i closed the DQ window lol!
Wow, this is just amazing. Sometime after the voting is done, you should share how you set up this shot. The light on the left tree is eerily appealing.
This image is very well balanced and gives a sense of tranquility. I really like the trees in the foreground and the reflection of the night sky in the water.
I like how it shows the trees and the fore ground in a silhouette and that you can see the different shades in the sky and the comet gathers the attention.
Right place, right time, right equipment, right composition, right clear sky, right pleasing, right with the dead tree on one side and live on the other (life to death implied), right knowlege about exposure, right contrast of the tail with the stars, right reflection in the still water.
10, right?
My first 10 is for this image. Part your technique, and part your luck.
Exit the solar system. Comet McNaught. To return in 300,000 years.
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