Sighting of Comet C/2020 F3 Neowise

Photo by Richard Jenkinson

Friday 17th July I set up my camera’s in our back garden in Chesham. The northern aspect for us is good as it faces the countryside and not the town . It started with cloud on and off right where the comet was, but slowly cleared by around 2230 hrs. I set up my Sony ILCE-7RM3 with a Sony 24-240 mm lens. This I mounted on an Ioptron tracker and set it up to Polaris. My other camera was a Sony ILCE- 7s mounted on a tripod. This is the camera I use to shoot live aurora.

The still shot using the 7RM3 was taken around 2310 hours. It is a single frame f6.3 ISO 1000 set at 240 mm 30 second duration. In window photos Edit and create there is a button “ photo enhancement “ I pressed this and it brightened up the photo very slightly and left it at that.

The piece of video was taken with the Sony a7s using the same 24-240 Sony lens. I shot it at 25 fps ISO 128000...yes that’s correct 128000. I shot for 1 minutes from the tripod and decided I would try something different, I played the video on my Windows laptop and using my iPhone recorded this bit of the video via my iPhone and this is the result. A closer view of the comet showing it shedding its tail as if on fire. There is obviously “ some noise “ but I was pleased with the result and fascinated to see the material burning/flying off. I had certainly not planned or anticipated this . Both camera’s are Full frame camera’s . The sensor spec for the a7s is 12.2 MP , but the pixels are a lot bigger then normal which allows very good night shooting/extreme low light capabilities , The a7RM3 has 42.2 MP.

It was great to sit in a chair and watch it with binoculars in between taking photo’s.

Richard Jenkinson