By David Hunter | 2024-10-19
The Road to the Comet!
On 10/22/2024 07:50 pm by Adeel Shafiq| Fort Munro, DG Khan, Punjab, Pakistan
Comet C/2023 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS A3 made its journey to our inner solar system after traveling for 80,000 years and it was the brightest comet after 18 years gracing our night skies and mesmerizing the viewers. We had been blessed with some stunning photos of this comet from across the globe since it's morning apparition.
For me comets hold a very special place in my heart as it was a comet which sparked my interest about the cosmos and due to which I started capturing the night sky. Sadly the weather had not been very helpful from the last 2 months as haze, humidity and now smog has been obscuring the awe inspiring views of this oort cloud visitor from almost whole of Punjab. I had been chasing this comet since the last month and couldn't get a proper image so this time I took a risk and traveled to the top of Koh e Sulaiman mountains at 6k feet altitude with a tricky road among the mountains with so many bridges on the way and beautiful scenic landscapes, just to have a glimpse of this beautiful object of our night sky.
This image tells a story in itself how I had to travel so much to a hill top above everything else getting closer to it just to have a glimpse of it with the naked eye and not only did I see it with the naked eyes but I was also able to capture it in decent details.
Here is my rendition of Comet Tsuchinshan ATLAS A3 from 6k feet from Fort Munro hill top where the sky showed it's true colors and revealed the comet in all it's glory.
Canon EOS 1300D, Canon EF 50mm 1.8 lens
Ioptron sky tracker legacy series
EXIF:
Stacked/blend
Sky : 30 x 60 seconds ISO 800, f/2.8, 50mm
Foreground: 10 seconds ISO 400, f/4.5, 50mm shot after moonrise.
DSS, Siril, Starnet++, PS 23