Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)

Comet NEOWISE has been giving much of the northern hemisphere quite a show these past few weeks. Based on the photos I've seen it looked to be bright and quite spectacular--maybe a couple of notches above the spectacle of C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS back in March 2013.

But, alas, I live in East Texas.

This time of year any day can be a combination of clear skies with burning sun and 100+ degree F temperatures, clouds, severe thunderstorms, high humidity, and dusty haze. In general, conditions are not often favorable in the summer for astronomy.

A friend of mine and I have been eagerly searching for NEOWISE this past week, but for various reasons we were unable to see it. The evening of July 18, 2020, however, he and I found a dark spot in my neighborhood with a clear view to the northwest. About half an hour after sunset and shortly after a pass of the International Space Station, we finally saw the comet through binoculars.

It was behind some clouds that were lit up from underneath by the lights of a few nearby prisons.  Several minutes later it was naked-eye visible as a faint smudge pointing up toward the Big Dipper. I took several images with my mobile phone and DSLR:

Samsung Galaxy S10+, 15 seconds at ISO-3200

The above image is a single photo taken with my phone. I'm amazed at what these little devices can do!

The two following images were taken with the Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D), stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, and have been processed in Photoshop to bring out the details and colors of the scene:

55mm lens, f/7.1, 8x10 seconds @ ISO-3200. The ion tail is faintly visible above the dust tail. Both tails extend, faintly, to the upper-right edge of the image.

55mm lens, f/7.1, 12x15 seconds @ ISO-3200

The first DSLR image is from earlier in the evening. The second was from the last series of shots that had decent data before the comet descended too far into the clouds and haze.

Weather permitting, I intend to try for a few more shots of the comet before it fades away. The latest forecast, though, has a tropical disturbance heading into the Gulf of Mexico, possibly for the Texas coast. So, there's that. Ah, Texas...

Moon/Venus/Mars Conjunction

Clouds. Clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds. It's been cloudy lately. A lot. And when it isn't cloudy the humidity is so high you can practically drink the air.

I thought I was going to miss the Moon/Venus/Mars conjunction on February 20, 2015, but the clouds parted just long enough for me to take a few shots. This one is my favorite.

Moon, Venus, and Mars. Venus it the brighter star to the left of the Moon. Mars is the star above and to the right of Venus.

Did I mention that it has been cloudy?

Terrestrial Nebulae

In my opinion summers in this part of East Texas are not great for astronomy. Most are hot, dry and hazy. Some are hot, rainy and cloudy. This summer has been the latter. The forecast shows clear skies for the coming week, but the moon will be right around the full phase. Maybe we'll have better astronomy weather next month. In the meantime, I'm keeping myself entertained with the clouds, of which there are plenty to see. Here are some videos I made yesterday before, during and after a short rain shower.

Click on the images to load the videos. All of the videos are in Windows Media Video (WMV) format.

A cloud forms and dissipates from a column of rising air. I didn't have the camera set up correctly for this one, so the exposure times were variable, resulting in a sort of "blinking" effect. (2 MB)

Clouds form, a storm passes by. The big drops visible toward the end are from water dripping off of the roof. (7.8 MB)

Clouds forming after the rain. (2 MB)

You will probably notice a dot to the lower-right of center in all of these videos. I think there's a speck on my camera's imaging chip, but I have yet to find it.

Clouds

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right? Clouds are the bane of astronomers, unless you're doing radio astronomy. It has been very cloudy here on the edge of the Piney Woods lately. Still, I think clouds are fun to watch. Click on the image below to load a Windows Media Video of a cloud boiling away. The video compresses about 25 minutes into 15 seconds. The file is about 11.4 MB.

A smaller version of the video (2.25 MB) is available here.