Photos of the Day: Capturing Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS Images for the Third and Final Time...

Richard T. Par

Yesterday, I drove back to Diamond Bar's Summitridge Park in California to take one final group of photos of comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS).

I originally went to Summitridge Park for a third attempt last Friday, October 18, but showed up a bit later than I should have (around 7:30 PM, PDT) since I ate dinner at home beforehand. The marine layer coming in from the Pacific Ocean (43 miles away) was already obscuring much of the sky across Los Angeles County from my vantage point at Summitridge...making it more difficult for me to spot the increasingly-faint comet.

I arrived at the park a few minutes before 7 PM, PDT last night (sunset was at 6:11 PM, PDT), and as shown with the images that I've included with this post, Tsuchinshan–ATLAS is becoming less and less visible as it moves away from Earth. The comet, once it disappears from view at the end of this month, won't return to our inner Solar System for another 80,000 years.

Here are the settings on my Nikon D3300 DSLR camera for yesterday's cosmic photoshoot:

Lens: 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens
ISO: 400 to 800
F-stop: f/5.6
Shutter speed: 2.5 seconds
Live View mode on my LCD screen used instead of the viewfinder

Hope you guys were able to spot Tsuchinshan–ATLAS over the past few weeks as well! Happy Sunday.


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par

Photos of the Day: Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS Pictures That I Took Last Night...

Richard T. Par

As promised in my Blog entry last Saturday, I went back to Diamond Bar's Summitridge Park in California yesterday to take more photos of comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)!

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS was a bit higher in the sky on October 14, and was more visible than on October 12 since the celestial body was no longer caught in the glare of the Sun as it set below the horizon.

Here are the settings on my Nikon D3300 DSLR camera for last night's cosmic photoshoot:

Lens: 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens
ISO: 400 to 800
F-stop: f/4.5
Shutter speed: 4 seconds
Live View mode on my LCD screen used instead of the viewfinder

Will I head back out one last time to see this comet before it disappears from our skies for the next 80,000 years? We'll see.

I already took care of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) with my two trips to Summitridge Park. Happy Tuesday!


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par

Photos of the Day: My Snapshots of Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS!

Richard T. Par

A few hours ago, I drove down to Summitridge Park in the city of Diamond Bar to take photos of comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)...which will be visible in the evening sky for the next two weeks or so. Once it heads back out to the Oort Cloud two light-years away, comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS won't return to our inner Solar System for another 80,000 years!

I used my Google Pixel 5 and Nikon D3300 DSLR camera to capture these snapshots. Here are the settings that I employed on my DSLR:

Lens: 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens
ISO: 400 to 1600
F-stop: f/5.6
Shutter speed: 2.5 seconds
Live View mode on my LCD screen used instead of the viewfinder

I plan on heading back out to capture more images of C/2023 A3 as it gets higher up in the sky over the coming days. This is my second comet in over four years (after comet NEOWISE in July of 2020) that I was fortunate enough to take photos of from Los Angeles County, CA!

Hope you guys are having a nice weekend.


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par