Since I couldn't get answers I could trust from the government funded scientists, I decided to check out this comet for myself.
(the horizonal lines in some pictures are a problem with an interface to the imaging computer, rather than fix it and chance losing some nights of viewing, I just moved the comet image away from the lines.)
Shram's Picture Archive....
November 8, 1996 - a composite of 7 exposures of 5 seconds each
To see other pictures, just click on these dates...
A Very Rare Picture
Early
in my Hale-Bopp observations, I caught this odd picture. It was October
2, 1996. It wasn't even quite dark yet. I used the computer guiding function
on my telescope to locate the comet in the sky. I was looking at the computer
monitor and was stunned to see the line of light under the comet. This
is almost surely a geosynchronous satellite that just happened to catch
the sun light just right to show up in the frame. I took a second frame
which shows it just moving off the picture. This was a three second exposure
and the line of light indicates how far the satellite moved in that three
seconds. It was a very small angular movement and corresponds to the amount
a geosync satellite moves in that time. Actually, this satellite was stationary
in the sky relative to the earth but since my telescope was moving to synchronize
it to the apparent motion of the stars and comet, the satellite appears
to move. This satellite had to be about 25 thousand miles away from my
location at the time this picture was taken.
My Patio Observatory...
I've always been an avid amateur astronomer. I have a
pretty good scope. It's a 10 inch Meade LX-200 with a Meade Pictor 416
CCD imager. (Note: after Oct. 18, most of the images were taken with the
new Celestron CCD that is actually made by the Santa Barbara Instruments
Group. Meade makes OK telescopes but their CCD imager and especially its
controlling software is terrible, awful, disgraceful,... it really sucked!)
That's about 6 thousand (plus) dollars worth of telescope and imagers,
not bad but no Hubble or Mt. Palomar scope. But since NASA and the people
with the really big scopes were not sharing their good pictures, this would
have to do. 
I spent
most of September '96 getting the scope cleaned, aligned, spiffed up and
ready. I was getting some pretty good shots of Hale-Bopp. Even in the light
polluted skies of Houston I was clearly seeing jets of gas and distinct
patterns of coma formation. The comet was getting brighter every day. I
am beginning to suspect that they are hiding the good pictures because
stars in the background would reveal HB's exact course. By carefully looking
at the stars in the background, it could be determined if some other body
were influencing the path of the comet. I think good pictures from the
big observatories might reveal HB is indeed orbitting something else. HB's
orbit around a companion body would be revealed in good pictures as a "wiggle"
in its path. I don't know why this is information they don't want the people
to know about.
