C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) sets over Mt. Katahdin to the north from Pockwockamus Pond near Millinocket, Maine on July 15, 2020, 22:58. The Milky Way, Jupiter, and Saturn set to the south over New England Outdoor Center’s campground where Craig Shaknis and I were staying. A lot of planning went into this shot between Craig and I. The galactic center or core of the Milky Way was most prominent at its highest elevation right at the end of astronomical dawn at 22:45, so I knew I’d want to start shooting around then if I wanted the Milky Way visible through tall trees. There aren’t a lot of close views of Mt. Katahdin to the north where you can still have a clear view to the south to capture the Milky Way at the same time. We also knew the comet would be about 337° on the compass dial around that time and we wanted it over the mountain, so that really limited suitable locations on the map to a tiny handful that changed every night as the comet moved. I did most of the planning with PlanIt Pro’s VR view to choose the best times and locations a few days prior while we waited for a clear night. When the weather looked promising, we met up and did some on-location scouting of several locations with PlanIt Pro’s AR view to verify we had an unobstructed view through trees, etc. My favorite spot was this island because I thought the Old Town canoe would make a wonderful, traditional Maine prop for a foreground subject. We started getting anxious at sunset as high clouds started obscuring the view over most of the state, but during nautical twilight they all disappeared and the wind settled down for a perfectly still pond with reflections. I set out with the canoe and tied it off with a rope to a tree, wedged against a rock so it would stay still for the long exposures. My original intent was to shoot a high-resolution panorama at 24mm, and I shot the lower two rows of foreground during blue hour for low noise, but then discovered I couldn’t tilt the camera up high enough to get the sky with my 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. I’d put the vertical grip on my camera for more battery life, but didn’t have the extension on my panning head for more clearance, and I didn’t have the other L bracket with me to use the camera without the extra battery pack. I was fuming at this point, LOL! Fortunately, I did have my 8-15mm fisheye with me, even though it’s f/3.5 at 8mm and requires a higher ISO. I had to shoot it level instead of tipped up 7.5° to keep my horizon straight for blending exposures later (curved horizons make gradient masks near impossible in Photoshop), so I knew I wasn’t going to get a good nadir of the sky straight up, but it was the only way to adapt and still get the shot without losing too much time going back to truck. Much of photography is about proper planning, and compromising/adapting quickly when things don’t go to plan. At least the weather was cooperating, even if the mosquitoes were not! I shot 10 images of the sky for stacking at 8mm, f/3.5, ISO 12,800, 30 seconds in four directions, and then four foreground exposures of 8 minutes at ISO 4000, plus dark frames. I sat under the tripod and shot everything wirelessly with qDslrDashboard on an Android tablet while I controlled the Nodal Ninja Mecha robotic head with my iPhone. It’s easier to use two mobile devices when you have two wireless networks to connect to. I watched the International Space Station go over while shooting, and saw several Perseid meteors, but didn’t include them in the finished image because they were either entering or exiting the frame each time. It took about an hour to shoot all the frames, plus the time packing everything back up and loading up the canoe. The paddle back to shore was amazing! The moon still hadn’t risen yet, the core of the Milky Way had set behind the trees, and the pond was almost a mirror. It was like canoeing through an ocean of stars. After a short nap in our tents, Craig and I got up at 2AM to shoot a timelapse into sunrise of the comet rising over the right shoulder of Mt. Katahdin with Abol Falls in the foreground. For post-processing, I did no editing of the sky or Milky Way beyond choosing a white balance in Lightroom and removing chromatic aberration. I then stacked each set of sky images and dark frames in Sequator via 16-bit TIFF files, choosing linear as a color space and re-assigning ProPhotoRGB afterward in Photoshop. I also stacked the opposite direction for the reflection, masking out everything but the water. The sky and pond is as natural as you can get. I did do some basic editing on the ground shots, particularly to reduce hot pixels and noise from long exposures, and chose a slightly warmer white balance. After that I blended the sky, reflection, and foreground into a single blended image in Photoshop with Raya Pro and manual masks for each frame of the panorama. That reduced 44 light frames plus 11 dark frames into 4 blended images for stitching. Finally, I stitched the 360° panorama with PTGui Pro and Photoshop. Even with an 8mm fisheye there is sufficient resolution for a 2.5:1 crop of the panorama to be printed 35” x 14” @ 286PPI. Camera settings: 8mm, f/3.5, ISO 12,800, 30 seconds for the sky (x10 for stacking), and ISO 4000, 8 minutes for the ground. Stitching data: 1 row of 4 blended images, total of 55 images including dark frames. Equipment used: Nikon D850, Nikon 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED, Nodal Ninja Mecha E2 robotic head, qDslrDashboard, and Really Right Stuff TVC-34L tripod with leveling base. RAW conversion with Lightroom, stacked with Sequator, blended with Raya Pro and Photoshop, and stitched with PTGui Pro. Planned with PlanIt Pro. Special thanks to New England Outdoor Center for the location and canoe!