... and finding C2020/F3
After a successfull failure in finding C2020/F3 the previous night, I managed to shoot some pictures of it in the night sky over Linz.
In my last post I wrote about how I tried to take photos of C2020/F3 (NEOWISE), but didn’t manage to. So I decided to give it another try the next day.
I updated my Stellarium database and found out that the comet actually was visible in a north-eastern direction, not in south-eastern direction.
Additionally I planned to get to the photo location earlier. Instead of sleeping and waking up early I decided to just stay up all night. A couple of hours nap in the early afternoon and one hour nap just before departure was all that was needed. This time I departed at arount 2:45, so I was on location at 3:15 to 3:30 AM.
Because now the comet was actually visible in north-eastern direction I had to find a new photo location. Using again all the tools I have (Google Earth, Mapbox, OpenTopoMap, etc.) I tried to find a good spot with a nice view. The research paid off as I had found a very good spot on Google Earth. You can do much research, but you only will see if it is really good once you are there. And what should I say more.. I just let the pictures talk for themselves.
One of the cool things when photographing at night is to see the city wake up in the morning. Linz is home to a big steel mill called “voestalpine”. Of course in the steel mill there is 24/7 operations since you cannot simply shut down the ovens for the night. So the stell mill illuminates the night sky constantly. But also apart from that unique industrial complex there are a couple of things to see in the city when it’s waking up.
But also aside of C2020/F3 there was a lot to see in the night sky. Venus was rising above the horizon.
Moon and Mars were visible, but I did not take any pictures. What caught my attention though was the arrangement of Jupiter and Saturn. In a previous post I have already covered the arrangement of Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in a single spot. Though Jupiter and Saturn never stop to impress me and so I shot another couple of pictures of the two giants.
At 4 AM in the morning it was finally time to leave for me. The comet had already vanished due to the brightness of the rising sun and another day was starting in the city.
