Thanks for all the comments!
Originally posted by VisualDarkness How the heck do you do this? Amazing and a shot I dream of taking myself!
Thanks! Not really anything that special.
My wife is out of town so I'm solo dad for a few days. It was pretty cloudy at sunset and I debated not going at all but then the clouds started to thin favorably. I knew that would be my best chance to get the moon and the comet together so I decided I'd better go for it. My son was in his PJs already so I just had him put on his snow pants and jacket over them and told him we are going for a little hike. We drove a short distance to a hill that overlooks our town and hiked up the hill a ways to get away from light pollution.
I set up the tripod and got out my A*300mm f/4 which proved to be almost two long to get both the moon and the comet. At first only the moon was visible but then I saw the little smudge that was the comet peeking through the clouds. I was happy I could fit both in the frame because I wanted to shoot with the best glass I had and I have a big gap below 300mm in the collection as 100mm is my next longest prime. I also have a DA L 55-300 but I didn't want to use it if I could avoid it. Just not sharp enough when wide open. Then I just waited for the clouds to thin and shot wide open, ISO 800, 1.6 or 2 seconds as the moon descended to the horizon. I took maybe 20 shots. I used Live View for getting the focus the best I could on the moon and exposed for the sky and added +1 EV for some of the shots. I also used the 2s timer to reduce vibration.
I kind of wanted to get more foreground interest but having my son with me limited where we could go because I didn't want to keep him up too late, so I settled for this perspective.
I'd love to get out more for better foregrounds but I'm not sure if I will be able to pull that off with my responsibilities at home. We will see...