After a few minutes, they climbed back aboard their train and rumbled off on their way.When I arrived at the site and got out of my car, I looked up and was immediately stunned into speachlessness. At Jones Beach on Long Island, about 40,000 people gathered to catch a glimpse of Halley.
Over the following weeks and months, it continued to expand and eventually transformed itself from an intensely bright dot, to a big blob, to a mere haze so diaphanous and insubstantial that you could scarcely see it at all.Rick spotted McNaught first when a nearby contrail from passing jet airplane caught his attention. While Hale-Bopp got all the press and public attention, Hyakutake was more like a private comet — a reward for the faithful who had endured a seemingly endless string of disappointments and no-shows that included Kohoutek in 1973 and Halley in 1986.I got my first look at Hale-Bopp while attending the Mt. Then, there was Comet Holmes in October 2007, which unexpectedly flared in less than two days from magnitude +17 to +2.5. At the time it was making its way through Sagittarius, but wasn’t a very impressive telescopic sight.
I brought my 10-inch Dobsonian telescope and used low power to provide a nice wide-field view. Comets White-Ortiz-Bolelli, McNaught and Lovejoy were at their best chiefly for people in the Southern Hemisphere; there have been no really fine and bright comets visible from the Northern Hemisphere since Hale-Bopp in 1997, — 22 years ago.
I doubt I’ll be able to say that about many comets.No one is going to be surprised to find this one near the top of my list, though some might wonder why it’s not #1. And it’s the first comet to come along in my lifetime that managed to excite the popular imagination the same way Halley’s comet did. For backyard astronomers, it felt like having to wait nearly two years for Christmas!My first encounter with Holmes came on the night of October 25th, the day after the flare-up was first noted. Although I had seen the comet well the night before, the combination of a darker observing site and the comet’s proximity to Earth made the view startlingly powerful.When I have a good night of stargazing, I feel as though I’m somehow connected to the larger universe — as if I’m in some small way a part of the same whole as the stars, planets, comets, and galaxies. It was slightly brighter than many had predicted and sported a short, thin tail — an adornment that all comets really need to look “right.”The weather gods smiled upon us during the peak of Hale-Bopp’s apparition and we had an uncharacteristic succession of clear skies over several nights. It was humbling. Memorable though it was, that proved to be my one and only glimpse of this magnificent visitor.Hyakutake felt like a gift. mind if we take a look?” With that, the engineer and his crew hopped down and joined us for a few minutes of comet watching. For me Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) was the better comet. The train seemed to take forever to reach us, and when it finally did, we could hear the high-pitched squeal of train wheels slowly grinding to a complete halt. Please refresh the page and try again.But comets can be capricious and, like people, have their individual quirks. If you missed Hale-Bopp, you might be forgiven for suspecting that I’m indulging in a bit of cometary hyperbole here, but I’m not! The train, and its 10-billion-candle-power light, had apparently broken down right next to our observing spot.
More on that in a moment, but first, let's talk about what needs to happen to produce a bright comet. But every now and then, one of them does something completely unexpected and ends up being a real delight. And this was just the opening act!By some reckoning Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1), was a truly great comet. The famous comet named for astronomer Edmond Halley only passes by the Earth roughly once every 76 years, but it’s appearances have often played a surprising role in historical events. As we were biding our time waiting for Hale-Bopp to make its way to the inner solar system and live up to predictions, Hyakutake seem to come out of nowhere. Hyakutake was great for a few nights, it was unbelievable only for a single night — March 24/25 — when it had its closest approach to Earth. "Thank you for signing up to Space. The comet did not become visible in 1884/1885 and it was believed to have broken up and disintegrated. In all five boroughs, Koch had arranged for designated locations to temporarily extinguish their normally bright lights to give his constituents the opportunity to get a better view of this famous comet, which was low in the western evening sky. In a telescope, it looked like a pale yellow snowball with a star-like nucleus.
And certainly the view didn’t suggest anything like the remarkable show that was due to unfold 15 months later.Fast forward to the spring of ‘97, and I’m regularly observing the comet through the living room window of my downtown Vancouver apartment. It was a wonderfully clear, cold, crisp, and calm night that seemed perfect for comet viewing. Maybe, maybe not.
Yes, it was reasonably bright, but 25 years from now, I doubt I’ll remember it. High overhead, Hyakutake’s bright coma and diaphanous tail dominated the sky. #5: Comet PanSTARRS (March 2013) Comet PanSTARRS photographed from downtown Victoria, B.C.
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