Stereo of Comet Neowise

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I had to share this stereo of Comet NEOWISE, folks. Taken in 19th July it makes a great birthday present for me from Jamie Cooper. Jamie is a brilliant astrophotographer, and not only selected two beautiful shots taken about an hour and a half apart – time enough for the comet to move against the star background just enough to give a nice 3-D effect – but also aligned them perfectly as a stereo pair.

If anyone else has managed to pull this off for this comet, I haven’t seen it.

It’s amazing how, seen lifted off the starscape behind, every detail in the comet’s delicate structure leaps out – the curved yellowish dust tail, the blueish and almost straight gas (ion) tail, and the nucleus of the comet, surrounding the physical rock which is the rocky body itself. Here it looks like it’s on fire, caught in the brilliant sunlight, but the comet is cold as ice.

Parallel stereo:

Comet NEOWISE by Jamie Cooper 19 July 2020 - parallel

Cross-eyed stereo:

Comet NEOWISE by Jamie Cooper 19 July 2020 - cross-eyed

and a mono version.

Comet NEOWISE by Jamie Cooper 19 July 2020 - mono

I’ve also included a different kind of stereo of the comet which caught my eye. It was cleverly put together byJasminka [@stereojazz.3d] who combined one of Jamie’s photos of the comet over Stonehenge with a shot from a different photographer Kester Freeman [@kesfreeman] who must have been just a few yards away at that moment. This produces a hyper stereo of the rocks of Stonehenge – and the comet apparently floating in mid-air above them. Out of curiosity, I zoomed in to this stereo to see if the comet had moved between shots. As you can see, in this case there is no movement of the comet relative to the stars behind, so the two shots must have been taken at almost exactly the same moment ! And so the comet doesn’t stand out in the stereo. But the compensation is a lovely terrestrial stereo foreground.

Comet NEOWISE and Stonehenge - stereo - July 2020

Out of curiosity, I zoomed in to this stereo to see if the comet had moved between shots. As you can see, in this case there is no movement of the comet relative to the stars behind, so the two shots must have been taken at almost exactly the same moment ! And so the comet doesn’t stand out in the stereo. But the compensation is a lovely terrestrial stereo foreground to see.

No 1:

Comet Neowise No 1 - stereo

No 2:

Comet Neowise - stereo - No 2

Cheers pals.

Bri

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