comet – David Kotz

Comet (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

A new comet!

September treated us to a lunar eclipse, which I had the opportunity to photograph, and now October has brought us a good view of celestial visitor C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). The evening sky was clear last night, but it took quite a while for me to find this new comet – still far above the western horizon more than an hour and twenty minutes after sunset. My first glimpse appeared in my peripheral vision – it was easier to see what I was not looking directly at it. I finally lined up my camera for a couple of decent shots.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)
(cropped from the photo below)

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) on 2024-10-18 at 1922 EDT
2.0 seconds at f/4, ISO 2500, cleaned with Lightroom Denoise

Comet NEOWISE

The arrival of a visible comet encourages me to learn astrophotography.

This is my first blog post in a week, and the first since our return from Switzerland. I envisioned writing a reflective piece about transatlantic travel in the time of coronavirus or about the re-entry into US culture, but we’re stuck halfway through a two-week in-home quarantine and there is a far more photogenic topic to describe first. Read on, and check out the gallery.