On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Stunning photos, Bill! Just stunning.
I’ve made two trips up CA-14 and US-395 to photograph comet NEOWISE. The first was in the early morning since the comet wasn’t visible to us in Southern California in the evening. Even though the moon was in the sky and quite bright, I chose a dark location, next to the cinder cone know as “Red Hill” just south of Coso Junction. I arrived early and shot a star trail series(which didn’t work) while waiting for the comet to rise. Even with the moon being pretty bright it was clearly visible in the northeast sky. I shot one wide shot of the comet, including the “Red Hill” in the frame and attempted to shot a more narrow view, but ran out of time as the clouds were rolling in. The more narrow view you see here is one of my test shots. A week later I fired to the Prius to shot the comet in the evening at the Red Cliffs at Red Rock Canyon State Park. I had to hike up the nature trail to gain some elevation to be able to see the comet over the red cliffs.
Comet NEOWISE rises over the Coso Range with a volcanic cinder cone at the left. The foreground it lit by the 3/4’s moon.
As the sun rises, NEOWISE begins to fade from view.
NEOWISE is positioned right over the red cliffs at Red Rock Canyon State Park.
NEOWISE’s visibility above the Red Cliffs at Red Rock was short lived, it began setting within a half hour.
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
Wow. Gorgeous images!
J R in WV
Very well done, Bill!
Thanks for making the effort and for sharing your photos with us.
mrmoshpotato
Woah! Awesome!
Baud
Wow. It’s not that bright with the naked eye, right?
I can see how the olden people started believing in the gods.
SiubhanDuinne
Stunning photos, Bill!
HinTN
Beautiful shots of our visitor. I missed the two clear evenings when we had superior viewing conditions here. Binoculars are definitely required.
gkoutnik
Audible gasp when I saw the second pic. A real classic – breathtaking. Is that Aquila in the back grouind?
JPL
Wow.
debbie
I especially like that last shot with the comet disappearing behind the mountains. Is that one of the Dippers above it?
Elizabelle
Spectacular. Thank you, Bill in G!
Laura Too
Beautiful, thanks! We drove a half hour out of Minneapolis to be able to see it. Still lots of light pollution and tough to see, so meh. We got home and looked through the trees in our front yard and…WOW! Cool! Not sure if it was the tree framing or the fact that the city has spent a lot of money upgrading our lighting to shine down instead of up but it was way more visible.
MazeDancer
Wonderful photos!
susanna
The comet dazzles and delights in these pictures. Lovely! Thanks.
eclare
Beautiful photos!
Wag
Beautiful photos, as always. Thank you!
arrieve
Wonderful pictures! I walked over to the Hudson last night to try to see it, but no luck. Probably way too much light pollution in NYC, though there were also clouds near the horizon.
Miss Bianca
It’s been such a thrill seeing Neowise in the sky. Your photos are amazing!
SkyBluePink
Magnificent!
TaMara (HFG)
Beautiful!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA): Thanks, I went out Saturday night and shot more from one of the closer dark locations. This time I took my tracker to get longer exposures.
@J R in WV: There will be more, I’m headed out to Joshua Tree tomorrow.
@mrmoshpotato: Thanks.
@Baud: No, but it was visible to the naked eye in a dark location. Even with the Moon out at Coso I was able to see it.
Neldob
Cosmic and absolutely lovely photos.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks.
@HinTN: At least on Saturday, from a somewhat dark location, it was visible without aid.
@gkoutnik: Thanks, looks like Auriga is the background.
@JPL: Thanks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: No, that’s a pretty narrow shot, the Big Dipper is much higher in the sky. I believe that’s some of the stars in Lynx.
@Elizabelle: Thanks, think of it as a belated b-day present.
@Laura Too: Cities changing their lighting helps, I’m guessing that the additional time after sunset helped with visibility. Objects in the sky really have the best visibility after astronomical twilight(about a hour and a half after sunset).
@MazeDancer: Thanks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@susanna: Comets are always interesting objects and they’re all different.
@eclare: Thanks.
@Wag: Glad you like them.
@arrieve: No, you can’t see it light polluted cities like NYC or LA without a visual aid(binoculars or a telescope). I did try with my camera here in light polluted Glendale and was able to see it in a photo, but I had to do alot of stuff to get it to be visible. But if you’re in a big city and want to see it, you have to get far enough from the light pollution.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Miss Bianca: You’re in a pretty dark location, so you can see it with the naked eye. Thanks.
@SkyBluePink: Thanks.
@TaMara (HFG): The pictures I took last Saturday are better as far as detail in the comet.
@Neldob: Thanks, one of the things about photographing objects in the sky is you can see things that you can’t see with the naked eye. With the comet, you can’t see the second ion tail which you can only really see in my last photo of the comet setting behind the cliffs. It’s an ion tail and it’s blue, though I didn’t capture the color well in this photo. As an example, looking up at the Milky Way, even in a very dark location, you can’t see the color that you’d see in a photograph. The camera captures more light so it can see the color that you’re eyes miss.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thank you so much for sharing. I especially like the second picture. Just so beautiful.
did you get pictures of Lovejoy when it was visiting us a couple of years ago?
J R in WV
Comets are amazing, tied with exploding bolides for impressiveness to me. One is be looking where it happens, when it happens, or miss it forever; the other is there night after night before disappearing back into the outer solar system, or even out of the system altogether if it’s orbit is a parabola.
I still remember my dad carrying me out into the back yard in the mid-1950s to see a comet, glowing like the moon in the north sky. Back then my hometown was a V small town, and we were out of town anyway, so a very dark sky. I didn’t really know what I was seeing, of course, being a child in arms, but I still remember the event.
He got home from work at 1 or 2 or 3 am, and they gently woke us up, mom carried my little brother, who was a babe in arms and cannot possibly remember that night. So unusual, so mysterious.
Comets are so mysterious.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
What wonderful pictures! It brings back memories of when we camped at Red Rock several years ago. So many stars!! You are lucky to live nearby and we are lucky to have the results of your images. Thanks
suezboo
Wow ! Thank you, Bill, for truly amazing photographs. The universe is a wondrous place when we look upward, not just around.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Thanks, that’s a test image that I’ve tried to get the noise out of. By the time to take the actual shots, it was overtaken by the clouds and dawn. The only other comet I’ve shot was Wirtanen a couple of years ago that just looked like a green ball.
@J R in WV: They are interesting, I think the first one I saw was comet Bennett in 1970. This is the first good one that I’ve been able to photograph.
@Cowgirl in the Sandi: Glad you enjoyed the pics. I really like Red Rock, it’s a good relatively close dark place. After I shot the comet I went up to Coso and that’s really, really dark. It’s hard to describe, but the band of the Milky Way had a 3-d appearance. It looked closer than the other stars, like an illuminated cloud and very bright.
@suezboo: Thanks, there will be more shots of this comet.
Kelly
Lovely, inspiring shots. I walked down to the riverside to get another look last night. It was almost too faint to see. There was haze from field burning at dusk which may have obscured the view. Made the best of it with good star gazing, a couple fine meteors and a cool swim before bed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kelly: Stuff in the air can make viewing bad, especially before astronomical twilight. The comet will also decrease and the tail should shrink as it gets further from the sun. It’s closest pass to us is tonight.