{"id":22756,"date":"2018-12-14T00:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=22756"},"modified":"2019-01-01T19:11:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T03:11:49","slug":"december-14-2018-dim-comet-and-no-meteors-from-san-nicolas-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2018\/12\/14\/december-14-2018-dim-comet-and-no-meteors-from-san-nicolas-island\/","title":{"rendered":"December 14, 2018 Dim Comet and No Meteors from San Nicolas Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There was a comet to look for this evening — Comet Wirtanen. \u00a0It was about as bright and close to the Earth as it was going to get today, barely visible to the naked eye. \u00a0 When I reached an excellent dark spot on the top of San Nicolas Island (elevation 900 feet), the comet was overhead, looking a lot like a little green splotch near Taurus. \u00a0My plan was to photograph the comet in about an hour, after moonset. \u00a0In the meantime, I would take wide-angle pictures of the sky and hope to catch a lingering Gemini meteor. \u00a0The peak of the meteor shower had been the night prior.<\/p>\n

I took a lot of 30-second shots in different directions. \u00a0I saw a handful of dim meteors, but none that were great and none that shot through the camera frame during an exposure. \u00a0The weather was getting chilly and breezy, with a moist wind from the northwest. \u00a0And, my wide-angle lens was fogging up quickly and constantly after each wipe to dry it off. \u00a0A few of the shots below show the effects of a fogged-over lens. \u00a0And, the comet is barely visible in the star-filled shots.<\/p>\n

This was getting aggravating. \u00a0I switched to the long lens as the moon set, and was hoping that this lens would not fog up quickly. \u00a0Its long lens hood might help in this regard. \u00a0To shoot the comet, I needed to point the camera and lens almost straight up. \u00a0The tripod that I have out here on the island isn’t really made for such a heavy load, and it was a huge pain to try to find the comet and to lock on it. \u00a0And, low clouds and fog started to form just to the west and northwest! \u00a0I had had enough! \u00a0So, sorry, no zoomed-in Comet Wirtanen images by me on this night.<\/p>\n

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