The Hale Bopp Comet

The Hale Bopp Comet


     As I am sure all of you know, we have recently been able to see a new but not

permanent additon to the night sky. This addition is known as Hale-Bopp, a comet

that is about 122 million miles (about 1.3 times the distance of the sun to the

earth) from the earth and is approximately 25 miles wide. Hale-Bopp was

discovered on July 23,1995 by two scientists named Alan Hale in New Mexico and

Thomas Bopp in Arizona. This is the first discovery for both of them, although

Alan Hale is one of the top visual comet observers in the world, having seen

about 200 comet apparitions. That is one of the reasons they put his name first.

     Alan Hale comments, "I love the irony -- I've spent over 400 hours of my

life looking for comets, and haven't found anything, and now, suddenly, when I'm

not looking for one, I get one dumped in my lap. I had obtained an observation

of P/Clark earlier, and needed to wait an hour or so before P/d'Arrest got high

enough to look at, and was just passing the time til then, and I decided to look

at some deep-sky objects in Sagittarius. When I turned to M70, I saw a fuzzy

object in the same field, and almost immediately suspected a comet, since I had

been looking at M70 last month, and *knew* there wasn't any other objects

there."

     Thomas Bopp explains his story like this, "On the night of July 22, 1995

some friends and I headed out into the desert for a dark of the moon observing

session. The site, which is west of Stanfield, AZ and a few mile south of

Interstate 8 is about 90 miles southwest from my home.

     My friend Jim Stevens had brought his 17-1/2" Dobsonian. We started the

evening observing some of the Messier objects such as the Veil and North

American Nebulae in Cygnus, when Jim said " Let's look at some of the globulars

in Sagittarius." We started our tour with M22 and M28, observing at 50X and then

at 180X. Around 11:00 local time, we had M-70 in the field when Jim went to the

charts to determine the next object of investigation. I continued watching M-70

slowly drift across the field, when it reached a point 3/4 of the way across a

slight glow appeared on thThis is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now!


Get This Full Article After Registration



When you subscribe to Electronic References, you get complete access to the meta-collection of full text articles and papers written by researchers and students spanning the last 5 years. For $19.95 a month, you will receive unlimited access and the ability to expand your research opportunities and knowledge.

This subscription package includes:

24-hours-a-day, 7 days a week unlimited access on any computer with Internet access
Complete access to all 60,000 articles, essays, and research papers
Ability to view, save, print and download any document you find
Ability to browse through perfectly arranged catalog of articles
Superior search and relevancy ranking techniques using our optimalized search engine
Instant access to the online database after registration


You can pay by credit card or checking account. You get instant access after registration:




1 Month ($ 19.95)
3 Months ($ 29.95)
6 Months ($ 39.95)





You will be billed $19.95 every 30 days or $29.95 every 90 days (recurring billing) starting on the day you subscribe.

Your credit card or checking account will automatically be renewed for your convenience until you cancel.