Pierre Marques watches in wonder as the Tsuchinshan-Atlas comet passes by over Corsica. It won’t be back for another 80,000 years. This photo was shot in one frame. Photo: Jacques Paul-Stefani
Adventure and inspiration

How I got the shot: the Tuschinshan-Atlas comet

Photographer Jacques Paul-Stefani explains how he took the remarkable Opening Shot photograph featured in Cross Country 254

6 December, 2024, by Jacques Paul-Stefani

This is one photo, it’s not a combination of shots. There were three major difficulties in making it:

  1. The paraglider pilot had to run in a moonless night on uneven ground (with no wind that night)
  2. Concerning the photographic technique, the comet and the stars gave off very little light, the paraglider nothing at all
  3. In the frame, the glider at 20m distance was big and the comet at 71,000,000 km very small.

In October 2024 the local press said that the Tuschinshan-Atlas comet would be visible to the naked eye in the coming days. A little later I learned that it would not come again for 80,000 years or “probably never”. I said to myself that I would be stupid not to try to see...

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