Carley Stocks — Astrophotgrapher

My name is Carly Stocks and I run Dark Sky Utah where I teach others how to capture the night sky. Generally, I photograph our beautiful Milky Way Galaxy, but in the summer of 2020, I was introduced to a little ray of hope called Neowise. My first comet chase was an uplifting experience in a turbulent year. It also gave me the confidence to start capturing some deep-sky objects. After seeing beautiful images of Neowise on social media, I decided to capture my own. I had no experience capturing deep-sky objects, so comets were out of my comfort zone. I wasn’t sure if my current gear would work or how to find the comet in the night sky.

On July 7, 2020, I woke up at 4:00 am to search the skies for Neowise. I opened my trusty Star Walk 2 app, typed in Neowise, held up my phone, and saw it was behind my neighbor’s roof. So I moved around and finally found a spot where I could see it. I zoomed in on the app to find some nearby stars. Then I located those stars in the sky. I pointed the camera in that direction and used the trees and roof as reference points to position my camera for a 70mm image. To my surprise and delight that beautiful little comet popped up on my screen. I zoomed into 300mm and captured a few more before the sunlight washed it out.

After a few days, it became apparent, I wasn’t quite done with this comet. The comet images had been a hit on my Instagram page, but I felt I could do better. So I started to plan and do a little research. For my next session, I woke up earlier and decided to drive to a nearby park where I would have an unobstructed view. I spent several mornings and evenings in the park learning to photograph Neowise. Comet photography pushed my limits, but I embraced the trial-and-error process and appreciated I had several opportunities to learn.

I didn’t have a telescope or Go-to mount so I had to figure out how to find Neowise. Finding an object in the night sky, that looked like any other star was often challenging. I’d use my star gazing app and compass to locate the general area and nearby stars. Then I had to find them with my camera. I could sometimes see a few stars in live view, but usually, I had to put my eye near the viewfinder and point the camera as close to the stars as possible. Then I would take an image at 70mm and hope the comet was in the picture. If not, I’d study the stars in the image to figure out what direction I needed to move the camera.

Once I had the comet in the image, I would adjust the camera position slowly until the comet was centered in the frame. Then I zoomed in gradually and took pictures until I reached 300mm. Tripod ball heads are not the best for fine adjustments so I had to be careful. This experience gave me a greater appreciation for early astronomers and became a rewarding challenge.

Up until this point, I took shorter exposure images. The light pollution and rising sun just made long exposures impossible. By this time Neowise was visible in the evenings, so I visited a dark sky location with my family to introduce them to Comet Neowise. I wasn’t sure if my small star tracker would be accurate enough at longer focal lengths. I was pleasantly surprised when my first tracked images of Neowise turned out well. The other surprise was how much larger Neowise was in dark skies. I had been using 300mm in the city, but 40 minutes outside the city I needed 135mm to capture the comet’s full tail.

After Neowise set and my family fell asleep, I watched the stars waiting for my other camera to finish a time-lapse. While star gazing, I saw the faint glow of the Andromeda Galaxy. Photographing Neowise had given me the confidence to locate that galaxy with my DSLR and zoom lens. Seeing 2.5 another galaxy on my camera screen was just as thrilling as capturing my first Milky Way image.

I’m still new to deep-sky photography and the Milky Way usually steals my attention, but I will always wake up early to chase a comet. I don’t know if I’ll ever jump to big telescopes and computerized tracking mounts. Right now, I like the challenge of finding something using a star app and taking a picture with a star tracker, DSLR, and determination.


Carly Stocks
www.darkskyutah.com
https://www.instagram.com/darkskyutah/