Description: Sometimes you need to plan in order to get the photo you want.
When I heard that our latest comet visitor, Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas, was visible to the naked eye to the West as the sun set and moving higher each night, AND knowing I had a trip to Yosemite National Park planned for this last week, I set about trying to see if I could capture both in one amazing photo.
This image is exactly what I had in mind. I didn’t know just how high the comet would be and my brother who is into astronomy helped figure out the general location. There was hope.
On Monday I hiked up the Four Mile Trail (Spoiler: it’s 5+ miles) which raises from the valley floor to climb 3000’+ to Glacier Point, a fabulous lookout if there ever was one. But it faces North and East; not ideal (although if you want sunrise images with Half Dome….GO!).
That lead me to scout locations while on the trail and about a mile from the top I found a perfect spot. Most of the climb was done with only 350′ to gain over a mile, do able in the dark. X marked the spot and my brother and I made plans to hit the trail from Glacier Point well before sunset (I’ll post sunset pictures in the near future because that was also very enjoyable).
As luck would have it, the moon was just past full and would be raising as the comet was setting, leading to what looks like daylight in this image.
I knew I wanted El Capitan in the frame and worked with a number of horizontal and vertical compositions. I’ll probably release some of those in the future. What I didn’t know is the tail of the comet would be so dang long!
If you’d like a print of this image, drop me a line.
ISO 800, 24mm, f/4, 30 seconds
Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA, North America
Photograph Copyright Peter West Carey. All rights reserved.
Note: Lightroom’s AI-Enhanced Noise Reduction was used on this image, not fundamentally changing the content but removing a lot of noise. I also cleaned up some airplane lights and hot pixels. Life’s imperfect.
Peter it has been awhile since we last chatted. I tried about 6 months ago to send you some photos of my trip to Narobi and the safari! But they did not go through. Would love to purchase a print of the comet from you!