With both Comet SWAN (2025 R2) and Lemmon (2025 A6) approaching perigee (closest approach to earth), I headed out once more to semi-dark skies on October 18, again setting up at the Ryan Mountain trailhead. Traffic heading up on CA-62 was heavy, and I feared a social media-induced frenzy. Fortunately, that did not arise.
The lot was about 1/2 full when I arrived, about fifteen minutes before sunset, but largely emptied out over the next 50 minutes. There were a few late arrivals, however. One group with a few cars seems to have hiked Ryan Mountain well after dark, while the other set up lawn chairs and looked for meteors. But both were groups were very responsible with their light control, and did not affect my imaging.
Lemmon was setting first, so I started there. The first shot was actually later in the night, with a 105mm f/2.8 lens on my Nikon D3500 (crop sensor dslr). Ten second exposure, ISO 800. Shows you that Lemmon was visible and pretty apparent as a comet through binoculars. You can also see a heck of a lot of satellite trails around the object, which really showed up in my closer shots.
The closer shots were using (with the focal reducer) an 80mm f/5.6 telescope and my Nikon D780 camera body. ISO 3200, 30 second exposure. Cropped, to reduce visible vignetting. Nice tail, some variation within the tail.
By contrast, SWAN was not nearly as apparent in binoculars, and took me much longer to find in my imaging rig. Higher surface brightness, but not much of a tail, so pretty stellar in binoculars. Same photo specs as the SWAN shots.
Next weekend is the Night Sky Festival. Despite the federal government shutdown, the talks and telescope aspects are still going forward. If I can get there early enough (not a given), I may try some more photography on Friday. If not, might try to manage some shots on Saturday, before, during, or after the formal outreach at Sky's the Limit.
