This is the July 21, 2020 appearance of Comet Neowise, photographed about an hour after sunset from the north shore of Eastern Long Island, NY. It is an example of the camera aiding the human eye, seeing something hard to perceive. After making numerous exposures ranging from 4 to 30 seconds, only then did I begin to see the comet’s tail. Across the Long Island Sound, the lights from a beach bonfire and from New Haven and Bridgeport, Connecticut appear on the horizon.

I met a woman swimming in the dark, felt the exhilaration of the hunt and spent two evenings in awe, witnessing this magical speck in the sky with other beachgoers. This part of a grand Universe visible now in the Northern Hemisphere has drawn so many of us together in imagination and wonder, a harbinger of peace.