The Epic Failure Of Comet Neowise Picture Mission
Well for about the past month (July) everyone has been talking about this comet and how it would be the opportunity of a life time to try and take pictures of it. Especially since it would be about another 7000 years before it came by earth ever again.
After seeing some really spectacular pictures taken by a bunch of other photographers some of whom are friends, I thought hhhmmm, I can go do this and I'll get the a spectacular picture too. Now the question was how to go about doing it.
First the research, started looking up information about how to even locate this Comet. Found an article on line that talked about a really good astronomy application called "SkySafari" It will give you all sorts of information about where to find Star Patterns, the rise of the moon, where things like the Neowise Comet. So after reading over the instructions on line and understanding how to go about finding this comet, the plan was starting to come slowly together.
Continuing my research, I came across another article that talked about what days were going to be the best days to see the Neowise Comet, and the one day that caught my eye was July 23rd (yesterday). So after talking to my wife (thank god she's a saint) and explaining what I was going to attempt to do, I started planning out where I was going to go and how I would get the "Ultimate" picture...
Once I was done with work yesterday, my wife made dinner, and then I made sure that I packed up all of my camera gear and loaded it up in my truck and departed for my little mission of the night.
I left home around 530pm to head up to the mountains of Ventura County and the little town of Oaji. The drive out was uneventful, I was in a good spot, as I had my music jamming, I was smoking a cigar and once I was out of the Ventura Plain, the skies cleared to a beautiful blue. Just outside of Oaji I stopped long enough to get myself something to drink and then continue on.
Once your in Ojai, you drive up State Route 33, this will take you up into the Los Padres National Forest. The drive up is a lot of twist roads, so one must pay attention to the road, and the drops into the canyons are steep, but the drive especially towards the end of the day is actually very beautiful. At this point going up the road, you'll come to a stop light and you'll have to wait for a few minutes for it to change and that's only because of the road construction that is being done. The last time I went up here, some knucklehead actually ignored the signal and almost got run off the road.
Eventually you'll come upon Rose Valley Road, if you turn off here it will take you out towards the Rose Valley Falls and some really great hiking trails, highly recommend you check them out year round as weather permits.
Continuing on..
I proceed up Route 33 for about another 30 minutes until I come to the back side of the Los Padres National Forest and the road begins to wind its way down into the Maricopa Valley. On the left side of he road is a turn out that gives you a beautiful view of the Maricopa Valley and the mountain ranges that spread out from there. I've gotten some really great sunset pictures there before, and thought that it might be a good spot for the comet pictures. BUT.....
Just before the Valley View spot on the right hand side of the road there is a side road that takes you out to the Reyes Creek Camp Grounds (Pine Mountain Ridge Road). Every time that I have traveled on Route 33 over the years, the gate to the part is usually closed. But this time it was open and I decided to take a chance and drive up the road..
I drove up Pine Mountain Ridge Road to see if I could find a decent spot to take pictures of the sunset, and then of course get a chance at the Comet. This road is especially not for the faint of heart, it is mainly a single lane road, with a few turnouts for vehicles to pull into so you can let people pass. I drove up about 3 miles just checking out the area and passed numerous spots that looked good to take pictures. So I eventually found a spot to turn around and started back to Route 33.
I did eventually find "The Spot" where I parked my truck and proceeded to set-up my tripod, mount my camera, check the "SkySafari" app and wait for darkness to fall.
During my wait for darkness, I jammed to my FIOS MP3 player (and my play list is insane, but that's another story) smoke a cigar, and just kicked it. The spot that I picked to take the pictures at, over looked the Route 33 Maricopa Highway and then the Maricopa Valley and the mountains heading out towards Central California.
Well eventually the sun set (at around 8:05pm) and then finally the sky turned dark and the stars started to come out. It was a beautiful sky and now the fun begins.
Time to find the comet....
It took me nearly another hour of waiting, checking my app, using my camera to see if I could finally find this comet in the sky.
Eventually I looked up in the sky and just below the Big Dipper, I saw a light that didn't look right to me, as it looked like something had a tail of light behind it. According to everything that I had read, the comet was supposed to be something very hard to see with the naked eye.
After spotting the comet, I began to attempt to take picture of it, and I once again became very impatient as I checked my MIOPS Trigger release, I reset my camera in different positions to get "The Perfect Picture" and I changed out my lenses several times.
It was during on of my attempts at changing out a lens that my entire Canon 7D Mark II body and my MIOPS Trigger fell off the tri-pod. After a number of colorful words and beating myself up about how stupid I was for not making sure my camera body was attached properly to my tri-pod. I picked up the pieces and tried to assess (in the dark mind you) just how bad the damage was. Well 1st thing, the MIOPS trigger (screen at least) was toast, couldn't read anything on it even if I wanted to. The camera body on the other hand seemed okay, so I put a lens back on it, and used a another trigger release that I had and continued to attempted to get the pictures that I came for.
After about another 20 minutes of trying, I finally gave up and packed it in.
The drive home was uneventful, but it blew my mind at the number of people that were parked all along Route 33 going all the way back to Ojai.
The next morning before I started work, I downloaded my images on to my computer in the hope that something I had turned out. After following my standard workflow, I began looking at the pictures and while the sun set pictures were great (my wife says I have enough) the ones of the comet and the stars in the sky turned out like.. well they didn't live up to my expectations and I was pretty disappointed in myself for it.
The upside is that the Camera body is intact and seems to work alright, but it will eventually need to taken into the Canon Repair facility for a proper servicing.
The moral of this whole episode is this:
1. Be more patient when you are taking night time pictures
2. Need to make sure I update my research on night time photography and WRITE IT DOWN!!!!"
3. Make sure when you are using your tripod to mount your camera or even your lenses, you much make sure that everything is mounted properly and secured.
On to the next great adventure...
Semper Fi,
Frank Sellin