In Mid-March, the first of two bright comets of 2013 entered the Northern skies - Comet PanSTARRS was 1st magnitude when I rendezvous'ed with my students from Astro 8A on Tuesday evening, March 12, at the Horticulture Center on the hilltop above my office. It has a great view of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean this time of year, and skies were clear when we arrived at 6:50pm. But, fog formed and slowly came in. Not before we got off some good pix, and everyone had a chance to see the comet in the 10x70mm binocs and the 13 pairs of 7x50's I also brought up.
For this, I cut the dynamic range dramatically in Photoshop, kept the vignetting that resulted. Done with Nikon D40 with max zoom. About 2 seconds, at ISO 800. |
Scanning.... |
Faye - starry-eyed, gazing at the comet |
My Astro 8A class and some alumni as well, and others gathered here for my impromptu star party and comet celebration. |
Got it! Just to the left of the razor thin moon |
Action shot |
Smiles in the sky and on me and my students too |
Astro club veteran Tom Trumbull did some shots from the top of Redwood Estates |
Nice positioning of tree and comet, Tom |
Cabrillo astro club veteran Sam Tarani's shot from above Oakland, with the lights of San Francisco and Oakland just below the hillside |
March 13 - tonight to escape the fog I told the team to meet at the top of Rodeo Gulch Rd. Met Astro 8A student Dean up there by accident, and his friends and neighbors from this mountain road. Gene came by shortly thereafter.
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Dean brought out a Dobsonian, recently de-mothballed, and showed his son the moon and comet. |
Too blurry to justify a full size image, but I wanted at least one shot that had a part of our crew. |
