Lesa Moore's Comet McNaught Gallery

I had time to fiddle with focus and settings. I had to remember how to use the old SLR and I also had to be careful not to drop the shutter button on the grass as it is no longer attached to the camera. But I could see the comet, which was the main thing! Then, of course, the owner of the nearby house came out to investigate the parked car. I said "hello" and pointed out the comet for him, but he didn't stay long.	Click on thumbnail images to see full-resolution images, each about 2Mb.
Most of these exposures are about 60 seconds, timed by my brain.
There is a very faint aeroplane trail in this shot. The naked-eye view of the tail at this point didn't reach as far as the plane.
There is a little shake in the photos as I had to hold the shutter button in manually. Since it broke I haven't been able to use a cable release.
Here the constellation Grus is becoming more visible - the stars to the right of the comet tail. Also note the star trailing as I was using a fixed tripod.
Another aeroplane trail - always adds a nice touch! And this is about when two kangaroos hopped through the paddock next to me.
I finally lose the head of the comet to the clouds. But at this point I realise I am seeing naked-eye tail as far as Alnair in Grus (the bright star to the left of the gentle vertical arc of stars) so I turn the camera the other way up for the next shot to capture that bit extra that the camera can do.
Here I'm hoping the cloud will hold off a little longer, and by now the Moon is setting behind a hill.
It's a bit cloudy here, but I don't know how much longer my luck will hold.
I try to find a gap but this parade of little puffy clouds just keeps drifting north.
More of the tail becomes visible as the sky darkens further, and again I realise I may be missing more detail as my naked-eye view extends very faintly in amongst the stars of Grus.
I move the camera further to the right and make the final exposure about 120 seconds. Subsequently the cloud broadened and I gave up at about 9.45pm. Other images of the comet (available on the web) show even more tail than this. My naked-eye view at this point only reached about half-way across what can be seen in this image. To the naked eye the tail appeared like a much softer fog with only a hint of the structure seen in the photo.