This is only the second comet I have seen personally and where I live I was able to see it with my naked eye, if only faintly since I wasn’t looking at peak time. It looked amazing in binoculars and once I saw that I just knew I had to get a camera on it.

Since this imaging session was very spur of the moment, I just grabbed my astro-modded Canon 1000D, my cheap 18-55mm kit lens, and my $20 Walmart tripod and got to work. I was amazed that at 18mm f/3.5 and 10 seconds I was EASILY able to pull out the comet. Once I took a few shots I just knew I had to get some in sequence so I could stack them and get a cleaner image. I chose a framing that allowed me to get a pleasing shot of the Milky Way and the comet in the same frame

I only took 8 x 10 second exposures at ISO1600, but because of my reasonably dark skies that was more than enough to satisfy me. Below is the result of that and I plan to get out again in the next couple of days as long as the weather holds out to get my 8″ dob pointed at it. Below is the result of the short stacking session.

I am by no means an expert in imaging either the comet, but this I was rather pleased with. This was stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and edited in Siril and Darktable. If you have a DSLR and want to get into Milky Way photography this would be a great opportunity to give it a try before it is gone!