Alright – we’re doing something this week that I’ve never done before! We’re officially having two pictures of the week. Yes, I know I’ve done series posts, but generally speaking there is one “Picture of the Week”, along with some others that I’m also sharing. This week, however, I really like these images equally well and both fit the same story – so you’re getting two for the price of one!
Last year we had two visitors in our night skies that I found really fun to photograph. First, was the aurora that happened last summer, which I totally missed because I didn’t believe we’d actually be able to see it here in East Tennessee (I’d been fooled by these predictions before). When they returned in October, however, I was ready! This is definitely not the best image ever, but I really like it because it’s the shot I got. If you look closely, you can see Andromeda in there as well, which I also thought was really cool.
Second was the Atlas comet. Atlas appeared in our skies last September and October and I was finally able to photograph it at the end of October when the moon phase and clear skies all happened to align. This is just at the very end of the Milky Way season here, and I especially loved that you can see it next to the comet, all of which is over Townsend, as seen from the Foothills Parkway. What was cool about Atlas was that you could see it with your naked eyes. So neat!
More next week!
–Dan Thompson