A So So Shot of Neowise

So Neowise was heading close to Earth.  Evidently it was discovered on March 27, 2020 by astronomers during the Neowise mission of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer space telescope.  It was located 2 astronomical units (190 million miles) from the sun.

It will be the brightest comet in the northern hemisphere since Hale-Bopp in 1997.  it was bright enough to be seen in areas where you can't normally see comets.  It was just below the Big Dipper.  I'm not sure if you can still see it and it will not reappear for another 6,800 years.

400,000 Visits

Sometime yesterday, I had the 400,000th visit to my blog.  I knew that I was going to hit this milestone sometime this week so I decided to head up to the Upper Peninsula this weekend to celebrate this event.

I figured that since the Mackinac Bridge has been so prominent in this blog that it would be a good place to start for this.  For this picture, I wanted to try something unique, so I have the Big Dipper over the Bridge.  I hope that you like this.

And the Stars Look Very Different

Normally I don't post all of the pictures that I take in a series.  But I was in kind of an experimenting mode, so I would like some opinions.

After taking pictures in Windsor, we decided to stop at Crosswinds Park to get some pictures of the night sky.  It wasn't the best place but it worked for the most part.  During this process, I realize that I need a cable release and flashlight.

 Photographing the night sky is not something I've really tried in earnest before.  I have a decent tripod but I don't have a cable release.  Night photography requires long exposures which means that you need little to no motion in your camera.  Even the motion of depressing the button can cause blur.

This was the first shot that I took.  Unfortunately I underexposed it by quite a bit.  I don't think I had a long enough exposure time plus I may have had the f-stop too low.  But those are things that you learned.

 So for the rest of the pictures, I set my camera to 30 seconds and the largest aperature I could.  Unfortunately that made depth of field an issue but that's something I'll know for next time.  I kind of like this picture though.  The trail from the plane looks like I caught a shooting star.

 One of these times I would like a longer exposure to get more plane trails in the picture.  But this picture highlights one of the problems I would have and that's namely light pollution.  To do proper star photography, I think I would need to find a darker place.

 So I was content to get pictures of the planes as they flew over.

 And the light reflecting off the water.

 Next, I tried my hand at taking pictures of the stars themselves.  You can make out the Big Dipper here.  One of the other reasons why I need a cable release is because I'd like to set up longer exposures.

 Shooting straight up at the sky.

 Moving around for other views.

 Almost looks like dusk or sunset, doesn't it?

 Again shooting straight up.

 Then I wanted some objects in my picture.  This is the pavillion at Crosswinds.

 A few more planes this time.

 No planes but the lights of Detroit.

 Another plane.

 Shooting at other parts of the sky.

 I think the red lights at the bottom are a radio tower somewhere.

One more shot with a plane.

So let me know what you think in the comments.  I want to try this again at some point.