Comet NEOWISE from 3446m

[SiriusDoggy]

I made a trip up to the Brian Head Observation Point in Utah  https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/dixie/recarea/?recid=24916 which is at 11,307' (3446m) to image the comet and other targets. It's a 4-hour drive from Las Vegas and we knew leaving Vegas that the weather was iffy. We arrived in almost perfect weather with only a few puffy clouds in the sky. We unloaded all of our gear and hauled it about 100 meters to our setup location. No easy task at this elevation! Just as the sun set we could see clouds, and worse, lightning, coming up from the south. Being on top of a bare mountain-top, the highest around, when lightning is rolling in is not the wisest thing. When it finally got close enough to hear the thunder we knew it was time to leave. So we reversed our process and got everything packed up just in time. No rain but we experienced a fantastic lightning display. We were too afraid to get out of the car to image it since we were on top of the mountain, above the tree-line, and fully exposed. I did manage to set up my DSLR on a tripod and grab this shot before leaving. Sadly, it is slightly out of focus so don't pixel-peep on this one. Prior to this trip, 7600' (2316m) was the highest I had imaged from and I could tell, had the weather held out, this would have been a spectacular location. There was almost no twinkling of the stars even as low as 30° above the horizon! This will definitely be a future imaging destination when the weather is more stable.

A short TimeLapse of the evening. 

 

Canon 5D Mark II, Rokinon 24mm 1.4 @ f2.0, ISO400, 25 seconds.

Edited July 23, 2020 by SiriusDoggy

[happy-kat]

That's a great sky scape and with the comet as well

[Craney]

That looks an amazing site.  

Guaranteed to have a low horizon.... no houses or hedges !!   

Great picture as well. 

[Sunshine]

A pretty image indeed!

[SkyJamie]

Lovely pic and enjoyed your account, well worth the effort and definitely best to play it safe with the storm!