Comet Hale-Bopp


Larger size - 38 K jpg

Roger Malcolm
Kewanee, Illinois
April 8, 1997

This picture was taken north of Kewanee, Illinois, using a 70 mm lens at f/3.5 on a 35 mm camera guided by a telescope. The sky was clear with no moon. This was a 20 minute exposure using 400 speed color film. Roger is the physics teacher at Kewanee High School. Click here to see the full 110 K jpg picture that was taken. To display an 8.5 x 11 inch poster of the full picture click here.

Larger size - 54 K gif

David Renneke and Mike Shaw
Dixon, Iowa
April 7, 1997

This picture was taken at 10:08 pm CDT at the location of the St. Ambrose University Menke Observatory two miles north of Dixon, Iowa, using a 135 mm lens at f/4 on an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera guided by a telescope. The sky was clear with no moon. The comet was a distance of 1.418 AU (131 million miles) from Earth and 0.922 AU (85 million miles) from the Sun. This was a 5 second exposure. False color was added to bring out the details. The size of the photo is 2.34 x 1.47 degrees.

4 sec exposure, 28 mm lens
8:48 pm, 5.74 x 3.57 deg		 4 sec exposure, 50 mm lens
8:53 pm, 3.19 x 2.00 deg		 4 sec exposure, 85 mm lens
8:56 pm, 1.88 x 1.17 deg

David Renneke and Mike Shaw
Dixon, Iowa
April 7, 1997

Shown above is the central part of three pictures taken at the Menke observatory. We used a 28 - 85 mm zoom lens at f/4 on an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera guided by a telescope. Note that the exposure time is much shorter (4 sec vs. 2 min) than for the pictures taken in the city on April 5 from the Augustana observatory as shown below. When you click on each picture above, you will see the full image which is twice as wide and twice as high as the one shown.
2 min exposure, 28 mm lens
8:30 pm, 5.74 x 3.57 deg		 2 min exposure, 50 mm lens
8:40 pm, 3.19 x 2.00 deg		 2 min exposure, 85 mm lens
7:56 pm, 1.88 x 1.17 deg

David Renneke and Mike Shaw
Rock Island, Illinois
April 5, 1997

Shown above is the central part of three pictures taken in the Augustana Observatory using a Minolta zoom lens at f/4 on an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera guided by the 14" telescope. The sky was clear with no moon. The comet was observed from 7:05 - 10:20 pm. Its altitude at 10:20 was only 4.5 degrees. It set at 11:15 pm. The observatory was open to the public from 7:15 to 10:00 so many people looked directly at the comet's coma through the telescope and also saw the CCD images shown above on the computer screen right after they were downloaded. The comet was a distance of 1.398 AU (130 million miles) from Earth and 0.914 AU (85.4 million miles) from the Sun.

When you click on each picture above, you will see the full image which is twice as wide and twice as high as the one shown. For example, the full picture taken with the 28 mm lens measures 11.26 x 7.07 degrees and has the added feature that a part of the telescope dew shield appears in the picture. Also, with a comet altitude of only 18 degrees at 8:30, the light from downtown Rock Island is very evident at the bottom of the picture.

3 min exposure, 28 mm lens
8:40 pm, 5.74 x 3.57 deg		 1 min exposure, 50 mm lens
8:24 pm, 3.19 x 2.00 deg		 20 sec exposure, 85 mm lens
8:08 pm, 1.88 x 1.17 deg

David Renneke and Mike Shaw
Dixon, Iowa
March 31, 1997

Shown above is the central part of three pictures taken at the location of the St. Ambrose University Menke Observatory north of Dixon, Iowa, using a Minolta zoom lens at f/4 on an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera guided by a telescope. The sky was clear with no moon. The comet was observed from 6:45 - 10:00 pm. The comet was a distance of 1.351 AU from Earth and 0.914 AU from the Sun. It was very close to perihelion. When you click on each picture above, you will see the full image which is twice as wide and twice as high as the one shown. For example, the full picture taken with the 28 mm lens measures 11.26 x 7.07 degrees.
Full picture - 79 K gif

David Renneke
Milan, Illinois
March 15, 1997

This is the central part of a picture taken at 7:36 pm CST at a rural Milan site using an 85 mm lens set at f/4 on an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera guided by a telescope. This was a 1.8 second exposure. The size of the photo is 1.88 x 1.17 degrees. There was a bright first quarter moon overhead. The comet was very easy to see with the naked eye for an hour and a half - from 6:45 - 8:15 pm. The comet was a distance of 1.33 AU from Earth and 0.958 AU from the Sun. Click on full to see the entire 3.71 x 2.33 degrees picture that was taken. In the full picture, the star at the bottom is Omicron-Andromeda which has a magnitude of 3.6.

Full picture - 71 K gif

David Renneke
Milan, Illinois
March 10, 1997

This is the central part of a picture taken at 7:02 pm CST (about 1 hour after sunset which was at 6:03 pm) at a rural Milan site using a Meade 8" telescope and an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera. This was a 0.2 second exposure. The size of the photo is 14' x 9' (arc minutes). The area of this picture is only 1.6% of the area of the March 15 picture shown above. The moon was a beautiful thin crescent in the west. The comet was very easy to see with the naked eye for over an hour - from 6:35 - 7:50 pm. The comet was a distance of 1.37 AU from Earth and 0.988 AU from the Sun. Click on full to see the entire 28' x 18' picture that was taken.

Last update: May 20, 1997