{"id":2861,"date":"2015-01-20T13:29:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T18:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=2861"},"modified":"2015-01-20T17:08:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T22:08:00","slug":"lovejoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=2861","title":{"rendered":"Lovejoy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I started hearing a lot about a comet. It was first seen by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy last August. Officially called C\/2014 Q2, the comet appears a dim, hazy ball to the naked eye. It\u2019s not too difficult to find it with a decent pair of binoculars. There are some good sky charts online to help locate Comet Lovejoy.<\/p>\n<p>Orion makes a good reference point. For me the comet was high in the sky during clear, dark conditions. Over a period of time, it\u2019s movement is evident in it\u2019s changing position in relationship to the stars.<\/p>\n<p>I spotted it one cold night from my yard, and the next evening attempted some photographs. It was hard to line up at first, but I finally got it focused in my viewfinder for some time exposures.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/comet-sky.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2862\" src=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/comet-sky.jpg\" alt=\"comet sky\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/comet-sky.jpg 600w, http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/comet-sky-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My first shot was taken with a 200mm telephoto and didn&#8217;t show a tail.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/C2014-Q2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2863\" src=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/C2014-Q2.jpg\" alt=\"C2014 Q2\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/C2014-Q2.jpg 600w, http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/C2014-Q2-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A week later, when I went to a 500mm lens and increased the exposure, the tail became apparent.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s still a week or so to see this spectacle. After that, Lovejoy&#8217;s next pass isn&#8217;t for another 8,000 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I started hearing a lot about a comet. It was first seen by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy last August. Officially called C\/2014 Q2, the comet appears a dim, hazy ball to the naked eye. It\u2019s not too difficult to find it with a decent pair of binoculars. There are some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-night-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2861"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2872,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861\/revisions\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}