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A beautiful "failure" of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) Stack of 101 6 second images through a Leica 180mm Apo-Telyt @ f:4, shot on Leica M11, tracked with iOptron SkyGuider Pro and processed with Sirl. Rainbow gradient courtesy of Platform Holly.
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Mistakes are human, yet our goal always seems to be perfection. At least mine does. And that goal itself may be a mistake. The theme of mistakes and failures have come up for me repeatedly lately and made me question what, exactly, a failure even is. This long read suggests mistakes are what defines all life. In the world of art, it's possible there are there are no mistakes - only happy accidents. Perhaps the only true failure in life is not learning from your mistakes.
I had one night only to view and try to image the comet, and mistakes were made. Between the full moon, proximity to the airport and university, I didn't
have great odds, but thought things were going pretty nicely during
capture. Unbeknownst to me, a minor lens flare turned into a major issue when I stacked my final image of the comet. I had opted for a light pollution filter rather than a lens hood, allowing the seemingly distant lights of Oil Platform Holly to completely "ruin" my final image.
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| 80 or so images from the same set, stacked in Starry Sky Stacker and worked in Photoshop in attempt to minimize gradients. |
At first I was frustrated and disappointed. I didn't have a great backdrop for the comet to hang over, like many of the images I saw in my news feed. I went close to try and get some detail and screwed that up too. I stacked it again in a different program and got something of a better result that I managed to work into something almost passable, but even that was a let down.
As I showed friends and family, I immediately pointed out the flaws. Most of them didn't even know there was a comet visiting our solar system, so few were very critical. In the end, I kept looking back at the rainbow gradient Siril (an image processing program) wouldn't help me with and found myself liking it more and more. From a scientific perspective, I screwed up. But when I look at the beauty of the pretty colors and the actual subject, I'm more than content. Furthermore, I have the memories of getting to witness this amazing event with my own eyeballs, along with spending some time appreciating our Moon. Maybe there really are no mistakes in art.
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The moon I was dealing with the same night. Single shot, Leica 180mm Apo-Telyt, M11
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The full moon illuminating my beach. It didn't look quite this bright to the naked eye, but not far from it.
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The plover's beach, looking toward the moon, illuminated only by moonlight.
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Getting some Bob Ross vibes with those clouds, reminding me there are no mistakes - only happy accidents.
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