Fancying another try at photographing comet Neowise, I met up with photographer Rod Best at Fair Haven Beach State Park near Fair Haven, New York last Tuesday night. We got to the park in time to catch a classic Lake Ontario sunset from the beach.

Sunset at Fair Haven Beach State Park near Fair Haven, New York on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. Nikon D750/24-120VR, 1/40s, f/16, EV 160, EV 0, 24mm Focal Length, Tripod, HDR Image.

To pull the detail and colors out of the scene, I took a set of 5 photos from -2 to +2EV and merged them into Skylum’s Aurora 2019 software to create this High Dynamic Range or HDR image.

Unfortunately, those clouds settled in over the lake and did not give us much of a look at Neowise. As the night got darker we turned our cameras south of the lake.

Stars and planets over Fair Haven Beach State Park near Fair Haven, New York on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. Nikon D750/24-120VR, 13s, f/4, ISO 5000, EV 0, 24mm Focal Length, Tripod.

You can kind of see the Milky Way on the right side of the photo but there is a lot of light pollution and clouds. The bright “star” you see is the planet Jupiter. I brought along the Sigma 120-300 Sport lens and placed it on the tripod to see what the planet Jupiter looked like. Using the Nikon D750’s Live View on its LCD, I did my best to first find Jupiter and then manually focus on it.

Jupiter and moons from Fair Haven Beach State Park near Fair Haven, New York on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. Nikon D750/Sigma 120-300 Sport, 1s, f/2.8, ISO 3200, EV 0, 300mm Focal Length, Tripod, Cropped (a lot!).

In this highly cropped photo, you can see Jupiter and its four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Nothing like a real telescope could do but not bad for a first time amateur astrophotographer.