Tauranga photographer captures Comet Neowise in the night sky

Comet Neowise was captured in the north-west past Mount Maunganui this week. Photo / Amit Kamble.

A lucky shot in the dark - literally - turned one Tauranga photographers night from good to great.

Amit Kamble was near Mount Maunganui, on Monday night, trying to locate Comet Neowise when he had almost lost faith due to the poor weather.

But a "tiny green smudge" appeared while he was aiming his lens in the direction he believed the comet could be.

"It just came out of the blue and put on a show."

Comet Neowise So after a disappointed start with clouds lying low just where the comet is going to be and starwalk 2...

Posted by Exploring Night Sky on Monday, 27 July 2020

Low lying clouds in the north-west, exactly where the comet was, initially put a dampener on Kamble's spirits, but he wasn't going to give up.

"I was just taking some random shots in the direction I thought it would be, and I was just about to give up but as I was scanning the screen I suddenly saw this green smudge.

"Because I have shot comets in the past I knew what it would look like, so I just re-framed it and started shooting."

It was a relieving moment, Kamble said.

However, if you were hoping to catch a glimpse of it yourself, you might be out of luck Kamble said.

It will be in the night sky until late August, he said, but not visible to the naked eye.

"You will need a smaller telescope to see it and with the weather which we have now, it will be really difficult to see."

But Kamble said any DSLR camera with a long focal lens would be suitable if others wanted to hunt Neowise down in the sky.

Kamble, a member of Tauranga's Astronomical Society said the comet had been orbiting near the north pole, but as it made its way out of the solar system, it was now visible in the southern hemisphere.

Ever since he first watched Star Wars as a child, Kamble said he had a fascination with the sky above him but it was comets that really intrigued him.

The rarity of comet's meant there was always delight in hunting them down, he said.

"At the moment there is three or four comets in the night sky, but you usually need some serious equipment to see them. And with light pollution and other parameters, it is not always easy to hunt them down.

"But when something like this comes, which is nice and bright, it was a good opportunity."

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Milky-way rising behind mount tarawera and looking over lake tarawera. One of my favourite places around bay of plenty to shoot the rising milky-way. Mount Tarawera is a volcano on the North Island of New Zealand. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886. This eruption was one of New Zealand's largest historical eruptions, and killed an estimated 120 people. Lake tarawera used to be home to the the famed Pink and White Terraces, which were destroyed in the eruption. #milkyway #newzealand #bayofplenty #tarawera #astrophotography

A post shared by Amit | Astrophotogaphy | NZ (@exploringnightsky) on Jul 23, 2020 at 4:08am PDT