Well, sort of.... I mean it is, but to be honest it's a not real good looking one of it. But it was the best I could do. 
I am guessing that the best time to have captured it was when it was seen in the early morning hours. When I captured this, it was when it switched to being seen in the evening instead of the morning a few days back.
My problems which resulted in 3 strikes, pretty much sums it up.
1. A Full Moon (99%)
2. Right after sunset so the sun was still lighting up the horizon, and the Comet is very close to the sun at Sunset.
3. It's right along the horizon. About an hour after sunset you can make it out, and it has an hour where it continues to sink towards the horizon, which is brighter still.
So not an ideal situation all around. But having been busy in California with the grandkids, my only shot at capturing it was on my drive from Colorado to California. And even that was a challenge because sunset found me in Utah along the I-15 and the mountains were so close. I was by Cedar City, so I ended up taking a road out of there that went East far enough to get me away from the mountains. It was a fun Keystone Cops type of moment.
But.... it worked out. I got far enough away that the mountains were pretty low, I was out on a dirt road, and found a clear spot to pull off where the snow had been cleared off or melted off. It was 27 degrees, so fingers got frozen fast. While I was about to set up a vehicle with massive lights drove up to me, it was the local Sherriff and he told me I was on Railroad land and was asking me what I was doing. So I told him and he said the railroad wouldn't care, and he drove off. I got my tripods set up and my 150-600mm on my D850 and tried to find the Comet. I knew it was a little ways below Venus in the sky, so that helped. But it still took me about 10 minutes to find it as it was so faint, due to the existing conditions I listed. But I did find it, and I could see it! So I was so excited.
Well, it was not far from the horizon, so having done some calculations while driving I knew a 1 sec exposure was the longest I could go without star trails as I planned on shooting at 400mm. So I set up my exposure as required and shot off about 40 images. I had to reposition where the camera was aimed as the stars were already drifting out of the frame. Then I shot some more. ISO 6400 gave me the best exposure, though I also shot ISO 3200 which was quite a bit darker, just to cover my bases. As it got closer to the mountain range, I went wider, 200mm to then also include some of the mountains. I got about 30 shots off, and that was it. It was gone below the mountain.
It was so faint in the sky as I shot it, I wasn't sure I could get anything in the end to process. But process I did. I ended up stacking 20 of them in DeepSkyStacker, and then processing it in Photoshop. The images looked just as faint as it did when I looked at it by eye as I was capturing them.
So it's faint, it's weak. But I got it, and for that I am excited. It's not perfect by any means, but I captured it, and that gives me a lot of joy. Sometimes I think the experience is worth more then the end result.
I had also set up and shot it at about 50mm and included more of the mountain in the frame. I haven't looked at those yet, but I can't imagine they are any better.
This has some natural vignetting in it due to just how bright the horizon was. It's also black. I am not sure where the blue of the sky went. Maybe with the exposure and just how washed out the sky was, it lost it's color? Not sure.
This is one I won't print, but I wanted to share what I did get since a lot of your knew I was trying to capture it. I figured I would share my experience.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
PS. I did have my star tracker with me. But if you read my timelime, there would have been no time at all to have gotten it set up before the Comet would disappear below the horizon.
I am guessing that the best time to have captured it was when it was seen in the early morning hours. When I captured this, it was when it switched to being seen in the evening instead of the morning a few days back.
My problems which resulted in 3 strikes, pretty much sums it up.
1. A Full Moon (99%)
2. Right after sunset so the sun was still lighting up the horizon, and the Comet is very close to the sun at Sunset.
3. It's right along the horizon. About an hour after sunset you can make it out, and it has an hour where it continues to sink towards the horizon, which is brighter still.
So not an ideal situation all around. But having been busy in California with the grandkids, my only shot at capturing it was on my drive from Colorado to California. And even that was a challenge because sunset found me in Utah along the I-15 and the mountains were so close. I was by Cedar City, so I ended up taking a road out of there that went East far enough to get me away from the mountains. It was a fun Keystone Cops type of moment.
But.... it worked out. I got far enough away that the mountains were pretty low, I was out on a dirt road, and found a clear spot to pull off where the snow had been cleared off or melted off. It was 27 degrees, so fingers got frozen fast. While I was about to set up a vehicle with massive lights drove up to me, it was the local Sherriff and he told me I was on Railroad land and was asking me what I was doing. So I told him and he said the railroad wouldn't care, and he drove off. I got my tripods set up and my 150-600mm on my D850 and tried to find the Comet. I knew it was a little ways below Venus in the sky, so that helped. But it still took me about 10 minutes to find it as it was so faint, due to the existing conditions I listed. But I did find it, and I could see it! So I was so excited.
Well, it was not far from the horizon, so having done some calculations while driving I knew a 1 sec exposure was the longest I could go without star trails as I planned on shooting at 400mm. So I set up my exposure as required and shot off about 40 images. I had to reposition where the camera was aimed as the stars were already drifting out of the frame. Then I shot some more. ISO 6400 gave me the best exposure, though I also shot ISO 3200 which was quite a bit darker, just to cover my bases. As it got closer to the mountain range, I went wider, 200mm to then also include some of the mountains. I got about 30 shots off, and that was it. It was gone below the mountain.
It was so faint in the sky as I shot it, I wasn't sure I could get anything in the end to process. But process I did. I ended up stacking 20 of them in DeepSkyStacker, and then processing it in Photoshop. The images looked just as faint as it did when I looked at it by eye as I was capturing them.
So it's faint, it's weak. But I got it, and for that I am excited. It's not perfect by any means, but I captured it, and that gives me a lot of joy. Sometimes I think the experience is worth more then the end result.
I had also set up and shot it at about 50mm and included more of the mountain in the frame. I haven't looked at those yet, but I can't imagine they are any better.
This has some natural vignetting in it due to just how bright the horizon was. It's also black. I am not sure where the blue of the sky went. Maybe with the exposure and just how washed out the sky was, it lost it's color? Not sure.
This is one I won't print, but I wanted to share what I did get since a lot of your knew I was trying to capture it. I figured I would share my experience.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
PS. I did have my star tracker with me. But if you read my timelime, there would have been no time at all to have gotten it set up before the Comet would disappear below the horizon.
