Holmes comet 78 days after the outburst
This image of Holmes comet was made from photographs taken in Chile on the southern hemisphere during
our two-member mountaineering expedition (me and my wife Zuzana). I had
only a small tripod therefore I used only short exposure times (10 s) in order not to blur the
image by sky motion. Excellent observing conditions in Andes enabled me to make a rather good image
even with very limited equipment.
This image is connected in my mind with a rather
strange experience. The image was taken in the lonely mountains rather
far from civilization on the bank of Rio Volcán not far from beautiful mountain lake
Mondaca. My wife Zuzana was sleeping in our tent and I was taking images
of Holmes comet enjoying marvelous dark sky not devastated by light pollution like in Europe. After
the comet set I followed my wife. Shortly after falling asleep I was woken up by a piece of textile
or something like that on my face. I threw it away having no idea what it was. I lit my headlamp but
I did not find anything except a handkerchief and socks. In the morning I was preparing breakfast
outside the tent and my wife was packing our things inside the tent. Suddenly a terrible cry came out
of the tent and the night mystery was solved. The big spider - tarantula was
crawling in the tent. I grasped the camera and made a lot of detailed images. After that I took
the tarantula carefully away. It could be considered as a rather dangerous incident however chilean
tarantulas are non-aggressive shy spiders not dangerous for humans. If they are not crawling
over your nose, they are lovely beings.
Click on the image or on the following reference to display the
higher resolution image version (1.5 MB, PNG format).
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| Image | 2008_01_08_tamron28-75.png |
| Date | 9. 1. 2008 (8. 1. 2008 according to local time) |
| Time | 01:03 - 01:06 UT (22:03 - 22:06 local time) |
| Place | Near Laguna Mondaca, Provincia de Talca, Chile |
| Coordinate | S 35° 28.401', W 70° 46.562', Alt. 1600 m |
| Conditions | Clear sky |
| Optics | Tamron SP AF Aspherical XR Di LD 2.8/28-75 mm (set to 59 mm, F 2.8) |
| Camera | Canon EOS 5D |
| Exposure | 9× 10 s (ISO 3200) |
| Copyright | © 2008 Miloslav Druckmüller |
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Miloslav Druckmüller
Institute of Mathematics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
druckmuller@fme.vutbr.cz
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Page last update: 14.2.2009
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