A Very Photogenic Comet

"Comets are like cats: they have tails, and they do precisely what they want." - David H. Levy

I must admit, when I first heard that comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was on course to reach naked-eye visibility, my initial reaction was one of mild scepticism. After all, similar predictions had been made about comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS (which promptly disintegrated) and comet C/2020 F8 SWAN (which also fizzled out). However, NEOWISE didn't just live up to expectations, it surpassed them - becoming certainly the best comet I've seen since Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp, the two Great Comets of the 90s.

Bright though it is however, NEOWISE (named after the space telescope that discovered it) is by no means a Great Comet like those two. Nor is it the first significant comet of the digital age (that honour must go to the spectacular Comet C/2006 P1 McNaught), but - due to its favourable placing for observers in the northern hemisphere - it's likely to become the most photographed comet in history (at least until the next bright one comes along). This is the fifth comet I've pointed a camera at, and it's easily the most photogenic, even if it did require me to leave the house at some very unsociable hours.

Comet NEOWISE should remain visible for the rest of the month, although it will - barring outbursts - become progressively fainter. At time of writing NEOWISE can be found in the late evening sky below Ursa Major (see the links at the end of this post for finder charts). You don't need a telescope to spot it; if your sky is dark enough it should be visible to the naked eye, and a modest pair of binoculars will give a really good view.

You don't necessarily need a long lens either if you want to try and photograph it (the image at the top of this post was taken with a standard 50mm prime). However, you will need a tripod and some means of operating the shutter without touching the camera (either a timer delay or a cable release). As I was shooting at a high ISO I also stacked multiple images and subtracted dark frames to further improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Here's another one taken at 400mm, showing the characteristic golden dust tail:

It's worth making the effort to see Comet NEOWISE at least once before it's gone; after all, it won't return to the inner solar system for nearly 7,000 years.

Links:
How to see Comet NEOWISE over the coming nights (Sky at Night Magazine)
Comet NEOWISE dazzles at dusk (Sky & Telescope)

Anatomy of an Air Display

It’s a hot August afternoon and the Broadstairs Water Gala is in full swing. The photographer watches from the promenade overlooking the bay, waiting for the air display to begin. Below him a Punch and Judy stall provides entertainment on the beach; an audience of kids laughing at the antics of model husband and doting father, Mr Punch. Out on the sea a flyboarder performs tricks in front of the jetty, rising up on a column of water as if he were a human missile launched from a submarine. A light breeze brings various smells wafting by: chips and suntan lotion and cigarette smoke.

At approximately 14:45 a Pitts Special aerobatic biplane appears in the sky above Broadstairs, its brilliant red and white livery mirroring the red and white stripes of the Punch and Judy stall on the sand below. The woman in the cockpit, Lauren Richardson, is a skilled pilot, tumbling and looping and rolling her aircraft to great effect. At the end of her display she performs one final pass of the bay, waving to the crowd. Some of the spectators wave back; some don’t even bother to look up from their smartphones. It’s as if, in their minds, an event isn’t real until it’s been uploaded to the Internet, even when it’s taking place directly above their heads. In two weeks they’ll be watching a wholly different event unfold on their screens – the senseless murder of two young journalists captured from both the viewpoint of a live TV broadcast and from the viewpoint of the gunman who shot them – and if they don’t see it online they’ll see it splashed across the front pages of the newspapers the following morning. But that particular horror will have to wait its turn; another tragedy beckons first.

Only five minutes pass before the next display begins: two RV8 planes trailing plumes of white smoke. After performing a sequence of close-formation loops and rolls, the two aircraft break to opposite sides of the bay and then fly straight at each other, appearing to avoid collision by a hair's-breadth. It’s a tried and tested manoeuvre, guaranteed to draw a collective “Oooh!” from the crowd. It’s also perhaps the one manoeuvre where the implicit threatens to become explicit, highlighting the unspoken subtext that underlies every high-speed form of entertainment, from air-shows to Formula 1. No one wants anything to go wrong – of course they don’t – but the potential for disaster is ever-present, adding a tangible air of frisson to the occasion.

The photographer tenses, tracking one of the planes as it flies right to left. In the back of his mind he wonders what he’d do if something did go wrong and one or both of the planes ended up in the sea – or worse. Would he keep shooting? What if he captured something truly harrowing? Would he sell the photos to the highest bidder? Would he sell them to the Daily Mail? Would he sell them to the Sun? He likes to think he wouldn’t, but of course, until we’re in that situation none of us know for sure. Not really.

The RV8 planes perform a variation on the loop-the-loop manoeuvre, using their smoke trails to draw a huge heart in the sky. Then they fly across the bay, left to right, one after the other, and the display is over. The wind is noticeably stronger now; the third scheduled display will not go ahead. The smoke trails disperse quickly and so do the spectators, kids nagging their parents for ice-cream. Already long queues are forming outside the two main parlours, Morelli’s and Chiappini’s. The tannoy crackles but – not for the first time that afternoon – the speaker’s words are inaudible to a large section of the crowd.

The photographer retreats to the shade of Ballard’s Lounge and orders a cold San Miguel. He sits by the window and reviews his photos. None of them are remarkable as aircraft photography goes, but there are enough keepers to meet his own modest expectations. He finds one from the end of the display, almost the last photo he took: it’s a close-up of one of the RV8 planes, smartly painted in shades of silver, blue and black, designation G-HILZ.

He enlarges the photo on the LCD, zooming in on the cockpit. The pilot’s left hand is raised to acknowledge the crowd, but frustratingly – from an aesthetic point of view – his face is not visible. Perhaps he’s concentrating on the smoke trail left by his colleague moments earlier. Perhaps he’s already thinking ahead to the display he’ll be attending at the weekend.

The pilot’s name is Andy Hill. In three days’ time he will take to the skies above Shoreham in a very different kind of plane – a Hawker Hunter jet. I don’t need to describe what happened next; we’ve all seen the pictures and the footage, and sometimes, when the images linger in our mind like a bright light that takes forever to fade, we might find ourselves thinking about the dividing line between life and death, and wondering if we’ve seen too much.

Broadstairs Water Gala 2014

Once again Broadstairs was blessed with sunshine and blue skies for the 2014 Water Gala, although the crowds seemed slightly down on the previous year. The good visibility and light breeze meant that all three planned air displays could go ahead, beginning with the Extra 300, which looked like it was pulling quite a few g's as it looped and soared:

This was followed by the Trig Aerobatic display team with their precision formation flying:

And finally, what I - and just about every other photographer there - had really come to see, the Grace Spitfire:

Pictures only tell half the story. It was a real privilege to hear that Merlin engine roaring over Viking Bay.

The Gala was rounded off by a fireworks display in the evening. It seems mandatory these days for every display to be accompanied by a hovering drone shooting footage from a bird's-eye perspective (not that any bird would fly near a firework). Was it wrong of me to feel disappointed that the drone survived the display without getting hit? The organisers must have been in a hurry to get home, as the last thirty or so fireworks all seemed to go off at once, much to the delight of the watching crowds. Intentional or not, it provided a suitably window-rattling finale to what had been a highly entertaining day.

See also:
More of my photos of the 2014 Water Gala
Broadstairs Water Gala (official page)
Trig Aerobatic Team
The Grace Spitfire ML407

Broadstairs Water Gala 2013

A packed Viking Bay played host to Broadstairs' annual Water Gala last week, featuring jet skis and flyboarding, and a visit from the Ramsgate lifeboat. A three-part air display was also scheduled, and perfect conditions meant that all three planes could take to the skies as planned.

First up was the Catalina seaplane G-PBYA, visiting Broadstairs on day one of its Circuit of Britain challenge:

This 70-year-old plane is the only airworthy Catalina in the UK, and it made several passes of the bay before continuing on its tour, making sure everyone got to see it from all sides.

The Catalina was followed by the Yak 50 G-CBPM, one of the Aerostars display team that performed here last year:

Finally, Manston's very own trusty old Boeing Stearman biplane, a plane I've seen several times over the years, but never had the opportunity to photograph against blue skies until now:

The festivities were rounded off by a fireworks display in the evening. I left my camera at home for that, figuring I'd already taken quite enough photos for one day.

See also:
More of my photos of the Water Gala
Broadstairs Water Gala (official page)
Project Hawker 2013