Comet Observation Home Page

Click on images for full-scale view

Color image of Hale-Bopp obtained on 1997 Mar. 13 with 20-cm, f/2 Baker-Schmidt camera and Fujicolor 400 SG+ film. The field of view is about 5x3.5 deg. Copyright � 1997 by H. Mikuz & B. Kambic. (This is a very large image [187 kb].)

This image of Hale-Bopp has been taken with a 15 cm f/5 reflector telescope, equipped with a SBIG ST-7 CCD camera, 1 min exposure, processed with QMips32 by C. Buil. Location: Ceccano (FR) Italy, 213 meters above sea level. Gianluca Masi (gianmasi@fr.flashnet.it)

Left: This image of Hale-Bopp was taken on 03.16.1997 - 03.20 U.T., with a CCD Starlight Xpress, 50mm f.2, average of 6 images by 80sec. exposure time. Marco Frascati Laives, Italy (mfrasc@dns.parsec.it)

Center: Image of Comet Hale-Bopp taken on March 10, 1997 from Pine Mountain Club, CA. 6 min. exposure guided. 50 mm lens Fuji Super 800 film. Carmelita Miranda

Right: The image was taken on March, 8 at 4:00 UT by Friedrich W. and Willi Wieland (Luedenscheid, Germany) with a 5.5" Celestron Schmidt camera on hypersensitized Kodak TP 2415 film. Unfortunately some clouds and dew on the corrector plate produce a slight halo around Hale-Bopp's coma. The image size is about 140 kb. E-mail:wieland@lisa6.physik.uni-bonn.de.

Click here to see yesterday's images

These charts, which were provided by Dale Ireland, show the where Comet Hale-Bopp is in the sky at a specific time (5am and 8pm local standard time) for observers at 45 and 35 degrees North latitude. (Click on image for larger view.)

This page has lots of images... a selection of recent images can be found here (revised 3/20/97)...there are hundreds images in the complete archive. Also, check out other home pages with recent images.

Last Updated: 20 March 1997

Next update of this page will be March 25, 1997...csm

I want to thank everyone who has e-mailed me kind words concerning this home page...they are appreciated. When bright comets are around it is often difficult to respond to every message I receive (approaching 50/day). Usage of the home page is way up (as expected) with Comet Hale-Bopp...the page is currently getting over 15,000 users a day.

In this home page:

Comets Currently Visible (3/12/97)
The Great Comet of 1997...
Information on Comet Hale-Bopp for the Non-Astronomer Hale-Bopp rotates about twice a day (3/19/97)
o How to Find the Comet
o Visibility of Hale-Bopp from the Southern Hemisphere
o An Easy Way to Photograph the Comet Yourself (3/19/97)
o Follow the Comet's Changing Brightness New Predictions on Hale-Bopp's brightness (3/14/97)
Recent News and Observations (3/20/97)
Comet Light Curves (3/14/97)
Ephemerides for Current Visually Observable Comets Updated ephemeris for Hale-Bopp (3/4/97)
Comet Definitions
Other Sources of Comet Information (2/2/96)

Comet Images (2/5/97)
Other Pages Featuring Comet Images

Other Places

NASA Home Page
JPL Home Page

Awards

The biggest reward for doing this home page is the positive feedback that I get and the knowledge that users find this page a useful service.

In February 1996, Iway rated the COHP as one of the best 500 Web pages. In fact, they felt that it was the 15th best science page on the Web! Their reviews of the 25 top science home pages are given in this link.

This home page has also been recognized by Magellan, an independent outside reviewer, as a three-star site. You can search the Magellan database of 1.5+ million sites from the Other Sources of Comet Information page.

The Comet Observation Home Page was been selected to receive the Griffith Observatory Star Award for the week of February 2 - 8, 1997 for excellence in promoting astronomy to the public through the World Wide Web.

(Of course, I think it should have received four stars, but I am a bit biased.)

Statistics

Typically, about 1,000 individual users/computers access this page every day. These accesses create more than 15,000 entries per day in the access log. This amounts to an increase in the size of the access log of 1.5 Mbytes per day! However, the peak access rate during the C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) apparition was 20,000+ users on March 25, 1996. During that date there were 374,132 entries in the access log accounting for ~30 MByte increase in the size of that file!!

This feedback form doesn't work always because of the significant load on this machine... if there is an error, please send regular e-mail...thanks, csm

Comments? (Please include your e-mail address. Often times your comments/questions require an individual response. I can't provide that if I don't know how to contact you!!)

Charles S. Morris / csm@encke.jpl.nasa.gov