Comet Neowise

Are you watching the skies? You should be, because there is currently a comet visible that only visits the Earth every 6,800 years. Discovered earlier this year, and called Neowise, it's amazing to see, and my pictures don't do it any justice...but I'm doing the best I can with the technology at my disposal.

From where I am it becomes visible around 3AM and stays visible until around 5:40 AM, even once the sky turns blue.

I took a bunch of photos, but only 9 were really usable...and one of them, the first one, was actually taken by my mom.

 My mom took this one about 4:50AM today.

 I took this one- on my smart phone- around 4 AM, the comet is the bright light right above the trees. The larger light is the moon.

 The rest of the photos were taken between 5:15 and 5:40 when the sky got bright enough that the comet was no longer visible.

 I took a moon-comet-selfie. When will I have another chance to do this? Well, nobody really knows because comets are highly unpredictable and another may show up at any time, but with THIS comet...I have about 30 days to take my shot before it's gone again. I made this my profile picture on Facebook.

 Not totally clear, but taken at 96x zoom, 42 optical, the margin digital.

 This is 42x optical.

 The rest of the photos were taken with my smart phone. This one approximates the photo I took in the middle of the night. They had risen much higher in the sky by this point.

 The comet, from the smart phone, is just a little dot. It's MUCH more impressive via the binoculars!

 Barely visible with no magnification at all.

Standing in same location, magnified as much as I could to get them both in the screen. The smart phone has a much more shallow magnification field but does not display what it is exactly on the screen like the camera does.

This is only the second comet I really remember. When Hailey's comet came through in 1986, I know I saw it but I don't remember it very well...I do remember the Matchbox car issued to celebrate it, but not the comet itself. Hale-Bopp, in 1997, I have GREAT memories of, I could even pinpoint in the sky today where it was. Unfortunately I don't think we have a photo of it, as the technology around then just wasn't what we have now...and I don't even have a very powerful camera. I use a point and shoot and a smart phone. I think I'm pretty good with them, but they have limits.

Although not the comet, I also shot a couple of moon photos I want to share.

This one was on June 30th. I went out to check the mail around 7PM that night, saw the moon was visible and the sky wasn't too dark, so ran in and grabbed my camera, and got a great series of shots...with this being my favorite.

 This one was taken yesterday...

 and this one today. Note the difference in the shadows. The photo taken July 14th was around 5:40 AM, while the photo taken today was around 5:30.

And this is just an interesting, artsy photo I took today. This cable is on the power lines that cross in front of my house. The camera focused on the wires, not the moon, but I still like it.

Comet Neowise will be visible until Mid-August, and then will be gone, back on it's millenias-long journey around the sun. Since I fully expect to take more pictures of it, I have created an album for them on my website: Comet Neowise. Currently it has the same exact 10 photos posted here, but there will be more, I'm sure of it.