Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1)

1996/7/5 First sight. It was a small dot in binoculars (Left-most. 21:30 local time, UT+8. FOV=5°). And a small tail was visible with the 60mm refractor (Right 2,3,4. The time was 22:10, 23:13 and 0:15 respectively. FOV=33'). Note the comet's motion in two hours.

1996/7/6 22:00 local time. After one day, the comet had moved quite distance (Left). The nucleus was visible with averted vision, and the upper part of the comet was more bright (Right).

1997/1/26 6:00 local time. It began to develop a tail visible in binoculars. The numbers near stars are magnitudes. A mag-6.2 star was visible through the tail (Right)!

1997/2/18 5:30 local time. Comet Hale-Bopp had become an easy object for the unaided eye. In the 60mm refractor the tail had a bright region and a dimmer region. The head was even brighter and had a strange fan shape.

1997/3/2 5:20 local time. The tail was very prominent even with unaided eye (Left). Binocular view showed that there was a brighter part in the tail, slightly to the right of the comet's center line (Middle). 60mm refractor showed a bright tail, a dimmer tail, and a very bright head. A star is visible through the tail (on the line in the drawing). (Right)

1997/3/8 5:00 local time. The seeing was not very good, yet in binoculars the tail was seen clearly to have a brighter part towards the right.

1997/3/23 19:35 local time. In binoculars two tails were visible (Left). In 60mm refractor the two tails were also visible, as was a faint star (Right).

1997/3/29 20:30 local time. The comet was impressive to the unaided eyes (Left). I was able to see 3 tails with binoculars (Right).

With Hale-Bopp comet. Pearl River SLR, 50mm lens, f 2, 30 seconds, Kodak 400 negative. 1997/3/29 20:10 local time (UT+8), Beijing.

A computer enhanced portion:

1997/4/8 21:00 local time. In the 60mm refractor, the nucleus showed some details:

1997/4/10 21:00 (Left) and 1997/4/11 20:00 (Right). Note the motion.