Comet NEOWISE over San Francisco, July 12, 2020

July 12, 2020 Astrophotography

Comet NEOWISE over San Francisco. Dawn, July 12, 2020. Shot from Portrero Hill. — Comet NEOWISE, shot from San Francisco. Dawn, July 12, 2020. Sony a7r IV, Canon 400/2.8L IS USM lens w/1.4x teleconverter @ 560mm, 1/3 sec, f/4.0, ISO 2000.

I finally ventured out of the house for a short photography project–the first such effort since we have been sheltered at home for COVID-19. A random thought on Facebook led to 60+ productive comments from other photographers, resulting in a 3:15am journey to San Francisco to set up for a shot of Comet NEOWISE, which was ostensibly to be positioned just over the Bay Bridge. One of Bhautik Joshi‘s super powers is poring over positional planning tools and finding the right intersections for the shooting of celestial objects, with a focus on urban juxtaposition. Bhautik did some research, and we made a plan to meet at DeHaro and 20th Street in Potrero Hill at 3:45am.

DeHaro and 20th St, Potrero Hill, San Francisco

Potrero Hill offers a great view of downtown San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and a large swatch of the East Bay. Using binoculars, we quickly found Comet NEOWISE hanging just to the right of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. It was still pitch black, and it soon became apparent that the comet was swinging clockwise rather quickly; so much for a shot over the Bay Bridge–we would need to be much further west to make that happen! Still, it was novel to see a comet so brightly illuminated over an urban environment. The cameras came out quickly, and we set up for dawn’s colors to creep into capture range.

I shot with a Sony a7r IV. Through some last minute love from friends, I borrowed a Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II and a Canon 400/2.8 w/1.4x teleconverter (thank you, Scott McKissen!). I mounted the Canon lenses to the Sony camera using a Metabones adapter, and used a Wimberly gimbal head on a tripod for support.

Because I wanted to shoot the comet over San Francisco, the only shot available to attempt was a multi-shot panorama. I didn’t have any lenses shorter than 100mm with me, so I turned the camera vertically into portrait mode and shot this 8-image pano.

Use the mouse or your fingers to zoom in and explore the 280 megapixel panorama of Comet NEOWISE over San Francisco (above). Dawn, July 12, 2020. Sony a7r IV, Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 100mm (vertical, 8 shots). 1 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200. The Zoomify plugin I used above works perfectly on a computer, and in Safari / iOS. It’s is pretty terrible Chrome / Android :(.

The original image is 400 megapixels. Panoramas are not easy to see on the web, but you can see a bigger version on Google Photos or interact with a larger version of the above image.