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(meteorobs) Hale/Bopp Obser Mar 3 ZAYGE
March 3, 1997
Well, the weathermen once again botched the forecast for my local area...but
in my favor. This mornings sky was totally clear at 5.1 from my work place
location in La Mesa, Calif. At around 4 am, comet Hale/Bopp cleared some pine
trees that had obstructed it's view. With the naked eye, the comet looks like
a bright star with about a 3/4 degree tail.
Thru my 14X100 binoculars, I measured a 3.1 degree dust tail. I can only see
a faint hint of the ion tail near the coma...but I know it's there after what
I saw from my observatory yesterday morning where it was darker. I can still
make out that single massive fan-like jet on the south side. It does appear
to have a slight shift towards the west though...not that it appears to be
getting larger, but rather rotating a smidgen. Comparing with Altair (+0.8)
and Vega (0.0), I came up with a magnitude for the comet still at +0.4... I
couldn't tell any change. The nucleus still looks stellar with no hint of
any "bar" shapes, nor any apparent signs of splitting.
I developed my black and white exposure from yesterday mornings effort. I'm
quite pleased really. Using my 200 mm f/3.5 lens for 30 minutes (guided),
I'll try to describe what's on the negative. There are two widely separated
tails...the ion and the dust. Up to this point, I have been using the dust
tail as a sort of reference. But on the negative, the ion tail goes back like
a straight line from the nucleus and dimly disappears at the negative's edge.
It appears to have the same thickness for it's entire length...(about the
same diameter as the apparent nucleus). This would appear to be a natural
reference if it was a little brighter. The dust tail creates a distinct "V"
shape with the ion tail. The two sides of the tail are about as far apart as
looking at the capital letter "V". It appears that everything from that
southerly jet is going off on the south side. The 30 minute exposure caused
the stars to have just a hint of trailing if examined closely...probably not
very noticeable if a 5X7 print was made. If you want pin point stars with a
200 mm as a reference, try making exposures not past 25 minutes...at least
for the moment.
George Zay
La Mesa, Calif.
32 North
116 West