Comets
Right click on any image and select "Open image in new tab" for a larger view of that image.
Comet Hyakutake, 1996
"And suddenly there it was. Magnificent, sublime, the Great Comet stretched nearly halfway across the sky."
March 25, 1996 11:30 pm PST. 20-inch f/5 Obsession, magnifications 72x, 182x, 242x and 450x, no filter. Original pencil sketch.
March 25, 1996 11:30 pm PST. 20-inch f/5 Obsession, magnifications 72x, 182x, 242x and 450x, no filter. Inverted sketch.
"I had brought along a friend, Kevin Clarke, to see the Comet, and although he looked for several hours he left before the first quarter Moon had set, missing the true glory of the Great Comet in a dark sky. Even so, the tail could be seen almost to Coma Berenices. I had my 20-inch scope set up, and as I was climbing the ladder for my first close up look at the the nucleus I mentioned that I'd been looking forward to doing exactly this for most of my life. Kevin joked that "it's at times like this that one falls off the ladder, breaking a leg". I thought about it for a second and replied "no, at times like this I smile a lot." I smiled all night and all morning on March 25th and 26th and I'm still smiling."
March 26, 1996 1:00 am PST. Unaided vision pencil sketch.
March 26, 1996 1:00 am PST. Unaided vision, inverted pencil sketch.
"And suddenly there it was. Magnificent, sublime, the Great Comet stretched nearly halfway across the sky. I've tried writing about what I saw, how I felt several times now and the most singular point I've come to is what rough and crude things words are. How do I write about a dream whose reality completely exceeds everything I'd ever thought about it? If you saw Great Comet Hyakutake from a dark sky after moonset on the morning of March 25th and 26th 1996 you know what I mean. If you didn't, I don't know that anything I'm capable of writing could come close anyway. But here goes...
By 1 am on the morning of March 26, 1996, Great Comet Hyakutake had been carried to the meridian. The sky's limiting magnitude was about 6.4. With the very bright coma (about magnitude -0.5) a few degrees west of the bowl stars of the Little Dipper, the brightest part of the tail stretched 25 degrees though Epsilon UMa - one of the handle stars of the Big Dipper - and more faintly on past Coma Berenices for a total of about 65 or 70 degrees, nearly half the visible sky. For awhile, the entire length of the majestic Comet lay along the meridian, north to south..."
Comet Hale-Bopp, 1997
"Where to begin describing Comet Hale-Bopp has been escaping me all day. I've been talking about it, but words or a sketch barely begin to hint at the experience of this morning."
March 8, 1997
"Where to begin describing Comet Hale-Bopp has been escaping me all day. I've been talking about it, but words or a sketch barely begin to hint at the experience of this morning. It rose tail first just south of the highest hill to our east (at Kah-Nee-Ta resort) and was framed by a rapidly retreating line of clouds. Soon it was in all its glory in a dark sky, and presented itself to a hardy band of fellow observers from about 2 am to sunrise. Probably about magnitude -0.5 now, the full traceable length of the tail is about 16 to 20 degrees. But that's difficult to pinpoint as the end of the tail became lost in the Milky Way. Naked eye, the comet looked very much like from 37,000 feet only much easier to see - brighter too.
The binocular view was stunning, the telescopic view astonishing. My sketch (above and below) shows a composite view through the 20-inch - its first night back in action - with powers from 72x to 413x. The internal detail was best seen into morning twilight. Exquisite, elegant..."
April 4th, 1997
"Will April 4th never end?! I'm rather happy it was so long because the weather was clear here. I set up the 20-inch on the ridge (on Chuck and Judy Dethloff's property in the Oregon Coast Range mountains) and Jim Thorne joined me. A thin haze ruined the transparency and seeing - the light bubble from PDX was huge - but the comet was nonetheless gorgeous. The best views were with binoculars and naked eye.
I took some piggy back exposures with my tripod mounted camera - I just placed it on top of the mirror box! Hope they come out ok...Through the binos the dust tail was spectacular, showing a strong curving line on its leading edge that seemingly overlapped the beginning of the gas tail. Pretty cool - perhaps a function of our foreshortened view now?
An interesting sight, although difficult to see, was the edge-on galaxy NGC 891 almost exactly due west of the coma - they practically overlapped! 891 was detectable mostly because of its dark lane - the galaxy was almost overcome by the brightness of the coma. Quite a sight..."
April 10, 1997
"A beautiful night! No clouds although there is a lot of moisture in the air. The Moon occulted Aldeberan and they set together after the star reappeared. The Moon almost seemed to roll down the ~30 degree slope of one of the horizon hills which was startling at first.
The comet was washed out by the moonlight, and when the Moon set the comet was dimmed by atmosphere extinction. Still a lovely, elegant sight and for the first time i could discern a faint blueness to the gas tail. Very nice!"
April 11, 1997
"A beautiful, magical evening scene, like something conjured up from a romantic astronomer-artists dream. The crescent Moon was above the western horizon as twilight deepened in to the Moon and comet-lit night. The tree lined hills on the horizon, softened blackness, silently rolled up to meet them, and the Moon changed the changed the evening into a darker star-filled backdrop for the comet...
The sketch (above and below) was what i saw of the comet through the 20-inch and 7x50 binoculars. I used 83x to 182x with the scope. Bill and Chuck shared the evening with me, the first time in months we've observed together. The band of clouds to the west were gone by Moonset and the sky was very clear for a couple of hours."
