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Comet over Lancaster County

Writer's picture: Dave PidgeonDave Pidgeon

THE LOCATION: Manor Township, Lancaster County, Pa.


THE EQUIPMENT: Canon 5D Mark IV | EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM | Peak Design aluminum travel tripod


GPS: 39°58'33.8029" N 76°22'15.0207" W


THE STORY: There's something about photographing the night sky that's undeniably alluring, as if the ghost of Galileo lives inside all of us, gazing up into the mysteries there.


We mere mortals may not be able to solve those celestial mysteries, but we can use long exposures to capture them.


Those of us who've rooted our lives in Lancaster County were treated to back-to-back nightscape wonders during Autumn, the first being an unexpected, rare, and breathtaking look at the Northern Lights.


Just a week later, the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet, on its joyride through the galaxy, appeared above our western horizon for several days.


They say it was a once-in-an-80,000-year event.


I jammed my three boys into my Jeep Grand Cherokee right after sundown and took off, deep into the twilight and the Lancaster County countryside.


I searched for a spot off the side of a rural road where the sky would open up to reveal the comet, I would have something in the image foreground.


This bend in the road proved to be perfect, moseying on down into a valley and providing a star-filled canopy. It was a surprisingly well-traveled road, cars coming every few minutes, a sweet opportunity to expose for both automobile light tails and the tail of a once-in-a-lifetime comet.


The comet moved on after several days, or at least beyond our ability to see it with the naked eye.


But it gave us mere earthbound human beings a chance to realize how much more to our experience there is out there, and that our own ride on this planet isn't the only one in the amusement park that is our universe.


Dave Pidgeon is a seasoned writer and photographer. He lives in Lancaster, Pa., with his three sons. You can email him at dave@pidgeonseyeview.com.

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