{"id":1499,"date":"2013-03-19T19:03:34","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T09:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2013-03-19T19:14:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T09:14:21","slug":"comet-pan-starrs-march-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=1499","title":{"rendered":"Comet PAN-STARRS 8 March 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Comet<\/a>
Comet PAN-STARRS March 2013<\/a>, a photo by ijerry1<\/a> on Flickr.<\/span><\/div>\n

This photo of comet PAN-STARRS was taken on 8 March. The comet was named for the PAN-STARRS observatory array in Hawaii where it was discovered as c\/2011\/L4. It took a couple of days trying, but I got there. And here’s how: I went up to Mt Stromlo armed with binoculars – about half an hour before sunset. This way I could set up in daylight, pre-focus the lens on a distant horizon and then wait for the comet to appear. <\/p>\n

The setup was a canon 60D with a 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6 canon zoom lens, mounted on a tripod, with a remote release. <\/p>\n

I used mirror lockup to reduce vibration to a minimum – and turned off the image stabilisation. You see, the thing is, that if the camera is mounted solidly on a tripod, then the image stabilising gyro will actually introduce vibration – so turn it off if you’re using a tripod.<\/p>\n

I scanned the sky about a hand span above the horizon after the sun set. Towards the end of twilight I was rewarded with the sight of a faint light smudge – which in binoculars resolved into the definite comet shape you see here.<\/p>\n

Settings:<\/b>
\n I used a 4-second exposure at f5.6 on ISO400 and a zoom of 275mm – so you could get the same photo with a 300mm kit lens. You could also get a pretty good image with a 200mm lens. <\/p>\n

Now that the comet has shifted to the Northern hemisphere – there is now an opportunity for those in more northern countries to grab a similar shot <\/p>\n

Good hunting! And why not comment with links to your photos? I’d love to see them \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n

Cheers
\nJerry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comet PAN-STARRS March 2013, a photo by ijerry1 on Flickr. This photo of comet PAN-STARRS was taken on 8 March. The comet was named for the PAN-STARRS observatory array in Hawaii where it was discovered as c\/2011\/L4. It took a couple of days trying, but I got there. And here’s how: I went up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-photography-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}