So Mike and I had made plans to possibly go to Cedar Key this past Sunday to try to get photographs of the Comet Neowise and possibly the Milky Way as well. This would be quite the drive but worth it if it all worked out. A last minute change of plans and Mike texts me at 4pm on Saturday and says he would like to go to Crystal River that night to see if we could get the shots we were looking for and probably about an hour closer it would make a good test run.
Well, we arrived plenty early for sunset but were greeted by some low clouds, but knowing they were supposed to be moving off to the west, by the appropriate time after sunset, it should be good. Being at Crystal River for the first time on the coast was really cool and we had time to go out onto the pier to take photos of the sunset.
Well the low clouds never left, so the best I was able to capture was this single photo of the Crystal River Nuclear Plant. The low cloud line you see running across the top third of this image continued on lower to the left which is where we expected to view the Comet Neowise.
So we returned Sunday evening to try again. As we pulled into the parking lot, it began to rain, and the five shots I was able to make in a single minute occurred just after arriving and then the sun disappeared behind the clouds. This shot of the sun, which to me looks like a fried egg, is all I could grab through the windshield of the car.
I don’t think we will make it back out as Neowise continues to move away and certainly don’t expect to shoot it on it’s return 6,800 years from now. A missed opportunity as I had plenty of time to make plans to go out and my initial lack of inspiration falls on me.