I too have noticed that the brightness of Hale-Bopp has been stalled for the past week or so, at around 3rd magnitude. With 12x63 binolulars (in around 5.0 mag. sky) it had that same funky bent tail that was about 1 1/2 degrees long with a bright (about 4th mag.) central condensation. With the naked-eye using averted vision I could see the central conden- sation and about 1/2 degree of tail. GWG