Comet Hyakutakes

Spectacular
Performance
B Y

E D W I N

L.

A G U I R R E

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

LMOST EVERYONE who witnessed Comet Hyakutake,

C/1996 B2, when it passed close by Earth in late March
agreed it was the finest comet in 20 years. For most people
it was the most spectacular they had ever seen. Its brilliant,

greenish head, long, graceful gas tail, and its nearly ideal placement in the
evening sky tempted even veteran sky watchers to compare it with such legendary visitors as the Great Comet of 1843 and Donatis Comet of 1858.

Comet Hyakutake was unquestionably at its best around its closest approach to Earth on the night of March
2425, and for several evenings thereafter. In the following weeks Sky & Telescope was inundated with hundreds of
reports and photographs from all over
the world. It was the sight of a lifetime! exulted Rob Lightbown of Caribou, Maine, after watching on the night
of the 24th. He and his companion reported tracing the ghostly ion tail for 75
across the dark wilderness sky. At the
same time we witnessed a beautiful aurora display, complete with green curtains! he writes. What a night!
That same evening Bill Smith of
Ukiah, California, was amazed to see a
bright knot in Hyakutakes 60 tail

Facing page: Comet Hyakutake formed a memorable celestial threesome with Venus
(the brightest object) and the Pleiades in the western sky at dusk on April 9th. Johnny Horne captured this scene from Kelly, North Carolina, with a 35-millimeter f/2.8
lens and a 7-minute exposure on Fuji Super G800 film.
Above: This March 27th view was recorded by Al Nagler from Charlemont, Massachusetts, with a 140-mm f/5 Tele Vue telescope and Kodacolor Gold 400 film. It shows a
straight, narrow ion tail superimposed on a broad, weak dust tail.

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

through 11 80 binoculars. Telescopic observers were dazzled by a brilliant needle of light pointing tailward from the
nucleus. Veteran comet observer and Sky
& Telescope columnist John Bortle, observing north of Stormville, New York,
likened the tailward spike to a miniature searchlight and recalled Comet
Bennetts similar appearance in 1970.
Diametrically opposite this feature, a
broad 120 sector spewed a golden fan
of comet ejecta Sunward, said Bortle.
Other viewers described the telescopic
structure as a comet within a comet or
a dandelion on its stem.
Observing outside Tucson, Arizona, on
the 25th, James Scotti (University of Arizona) and David Levy estimated Hyakutakes tail to be 100 long more than
halfway across the sky! Levy called it the
Energizer Bunny tail it just keeps
going and going and going. . . .
That night several Japanese observers
claimed to have made the first observation of a comet occulting a star. Isao Sato
(National Astronomical Observatory) reported that they obtained visual and photoelectric records of Hyakutakes dense
near-nucleus region occulting the 6.6magnitude star PPM18962 for 1 second.
George W. Gliba relates that on the
morning of the 25th he and some members of the Greenbelt Astronomy Club
were admiring Hyakutakes 40 tail from
a dark-sky site in Kent Narrows, Maryland, when they were interrupted by
four police cars with flood lights pointed
at them. They told us, Lets see your
hands! and asked what we were doing. I
showed one of the officers the comet,
and they let us go. I guess they mistook
us for the bad guys they were after. They
spoiled our night vision, but not our feeling of awe and wonder.
Victor L. Badillo, S.J., of the Manila
Observatory, reported that members of
the Philippine Astronomical Society saw
July 1996 Sky & Telescope

23

March 23 14:00 UT

March 24 15:00 UT

March 26 14:00 UT

The active head of Comet Hyakutake was sketched by Stephen James OMeara from Volcano, Hawaii, using a 4-inch Tele Vue Genesis refractor at 177. The black dot on the third sketch is a star. Note the parabolic hoods or envelopes, jets, and fans on the comets Sunward
side. Such transient features in the coma, as well as rays and streamers on the tailward side of a comet, indicate that sublimation is not
uniform over the nucleuss surface. Rather, small active regions or hot spots outgas when facing the Sun. Observations of spiraling nuclear jets in Hyakutake led researchers at the European Southern Observatory to infer a rotation period of about 614 hours.

Hyakutakes tail extend up to 50 at the

time of Earth passage, despite some light
pollution from the metropolis. Observing
from 7,000 feet in the Italian Alps,
Mauro Vittorio Zanotta recorded a 2
coma and a 40 tail. On March 26th
David W. Knisely of Beatrice, Nebraska,
who had been following the comet every
clear night with his naked eye, 1050
binoculars, and 10-inch f/5.6 Newtonian,
reported that about 30 down its length,
the tail appeared diffuse and somewhat
broken, as if a large streamer was breaking away. From his apartment roof in
Washington, D.C., Barrett Brick estimated the comets magnitude to be zero and
its tail length 6. The view of the comet
poised above Polaris was striking, Bar-

rett remarked. That night we had not

only a Pole Star, but also a Pole Comet!
Forrest M. Mims III of Seguin, Texas,
first observed the comet with his unaided eye on March 20th, but he reports
that an inexpensive night-vision scope
provided a much better view. The nucleus and fuzzy coma were much
brighter through the night-vision scope
than with my 1025 binoculars, he
notes. Mims uses a Moonlight Products
Russian-made Zenit NV-100 unit, which
is available from various dealers in the
U.S. for around $300. It amplifies incoming light by 10,000 times. Mims says the
image is grainy and its brightness hampers dark adaptation, but he finds the
device to be excellent for scanning the

Peering deep into the comets bright veil of gas and dust, Kenneth J. Jerkatis of Barrington, Illinois, recorded Hyakutakes broad, Sunward fan and prominent tailward spike on
March 26th. Jerkatis used an 8-inch f/5 Newtonian reflector and Kodak Gold 400 film for
this 1-minute exposure. The comets inner telescopic structure was often described as
being similar to a comet within a comet or a dandelion on its stem. Dale Ireland of
Silverdale, Washington, likened it to a horseshoe crab. Inset: A close-up of the brilliant,
needlelike tailward spike projecting from the almost starlike pseudonucleus. Scott Alder
of Wallsend, New South Wales, Australia, obtained this view with a 10-inch f/11 Newtonian.
Note the orange (dust-rich) parabolic hoods on the Sunward side of the pseudonucleus.

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Sky & Telescope July 1996

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

sky and for introducing friends to basic

stargazing.
On March 22nd high schools in Snderborg, Denmark, and Lisbon, Portugal,
exploited Hyakutake in a classic joint exercise to measure the comets distance.
Students 16 to 18 years old simultaneously pointed CCD-equipped telescopes toward Hyakutake and found a 20" shift in
its position due to the geographic separation between the two cities. From this
displacement they obtained a distance of
24.8 million kilometers to the comet (the
actual value was 22 million). Tycho Brahe
and his contemporaries used this parallax
method to find the distance to the Comet
of 1577, providing the first proof that
these visitors lie far beyond the Earths
atmosphere.
On the 23rd Tom Polakis and a friend
were on a flight from Sydney, Australia.
Bernie and I were hesitantly allowed
to make a brief trip to the flight deck to
inform the pilots about the comet. I
brought my 720 compact binoculars.
There was the captain of the Boeing 747400 viewing through my little binocs asking about the comets story. It was a beautiful sight through the cockpit window!
An added attraction almost every
night Ive observed the comet is the large
number of sporadic meteors, writes Dennis W. McCullough, who observed from
Los Padres National Forest 70 miles east
of Santa Maria, California, at an elevation of 7,000 feet. On one night my observing partner and I counted 84 in just
three hours. I have friend who owns a
camera store. He sold every binocular
and telescope he had after the 19th! You
cannot find a copy of Sky & Telescope
from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo.
As diehard observers went without
sleep to follow the comet night after
night, their work suffered at schools and
day jobs. Almost everyone complained
about lack of sleep, says George Gliba.
Were tired and have comet fever, but
otherwise feel great. This is the stuff

Raymond Pojman chose the Grand Canyons Moran Point in Arizona as foreground for this 20-minute circumpolar shot of Comet Hyakutake on March 27th. During its brief but memorable visit, Hyakutake was the subject of close scientific scrutiny, including the first detection ever of cometary X-rays and the third successful radar observation of a comet (see the June issue, pages 11 and 22, respectively).

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

July 1996 Sky & Telescope

25

In addition to Hyakutakes fine display of a

bright, starlike nucleus
and a long, wispy tail,
some comet watchers
remarked on seeing
many sporadic meteors.
This one was captured
by Mark Riddick on
March 24th from Shenandoah State Park,
Virginia, with a 50-mm
f/1.2 lens and Kodak
Ektachrome 400 film
exposed for 2 minutes.

dreams are made of, so who needs

sleep? Another observer, Carrie Meyers, summed it up best: This is what I
live for 350 days of boring skies, then
two weeks of bedlam!
By the end of March, as the comet was
speeding away from Earth toward the
Sun, it predictably shrank in size but its
surface brightness remained the same.
Some described the tail growing slightly
in brightness relative to the head. Telescopic views from March 25th to 28th
showed the brilliant tail spike fading
away almost to invisibility, while the Sunward fan widened, brightened, and tilted
slightly askew with respect to the spike.

March 24 22:46 UT

March 24 23:46 UT

The total eclipse of the Moon on April

3rd gave observers in the Northeast a
brief respite from lunar glare. In fact,
during totality some spent more time observing the 2nd-magnitude comet near
Alpha Persei than the dull copper-brown
disk of the eclipsed Moon. Venus next to
the Pleiades made this a triply memorable evening.

March 25 00:28 UT

A SCIENTIFIC BONANZA
Not only amateurs were thrilled with
Hyakutakes sudden appearance. Professional astronomers worldwide worked the
gamut of the electromagnetic spectrum,
from radio waves to X-rays, to study the
March 25 02:37 UT

March 25 04:21 UT

Above: The offset of Comet Hyakutakes star trail near the north celestial pole betrays
the comets movement during this hour-long exposure, made on March 27th by Akira Fujii
of Koriyama, Japan. He used a 165-mm f/5.6 lens and Fujicolor G 400 film. The comet
passed only 4 from Polaris (lower right) two nights after its Earth flyby.
Right: This sequence shows Comet Hyakutakes ion (gas) tail disconnecting from the head
and a new one immediately taking its place. Such disconnection events occur when a
comet crosses an interplanetary sector boundary, where the solar winds magnetic field reverses direction. The photographs were taken by Philipp Keller and Georg Schmidbauer
from Weisenfelden, Germany, except for the third one, taken by Erich Kolmhofer and Herbert Raab near Linz, Austria. Keller and Schmidbauer used a homemade 16-inch f/2
Schmidt camera and hypered Kodak Technical Pan 4415 film, while Kolmhofer and Raab
had a 9-inch f/2 Schmidt camera and hypered Tech Pan 6415.

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Sky & Telescope July 1996

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

March 26 02:30 UT

How the Comet Was Discovered

OR YUJI HYAKUTAKE, the
Yuji Hyakutake of Kagoshima, Japan, brings
45-year-old Japanese amateur
his Fujinon 25150 binoculars for cometwho found the comet, the dishunting sessions at a dark-sky site 15 kilometers from his home. A photography major
covery was a dream come true. But his
from Kyushu Industry University, Hyakusudden worldwide fame was a little
take lives with his wife and two sons in the
overwhelming. He found himself unvillage of Hayato. Photograph by Akira
able to comet hunt because the spotOtawara. 1996 by Tenmon Guide, Japans
lights of television crews followed him
leading amateur astronomy magazine.
to his observing site. Fame, however,
has had its rewards. Hyakutake was
flown to the United States in March as
a special guest of Chicagos Adler
Planetarium, where he received hearty
congratulations. This comet is a lucky
comet for me, he told the crowd
through an interpreter.
Hyakutake (the name means a
hundred samurai) lives with his family in the village of Hayato, in Kyushus
Kagoshima Prefecture some 950 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. Ive been
interested in comets since I was 15
years old, after I heard of the Japanese
Comet Ikeya-Seki, which appeared in
1965, he says. My interest in astronomy has increased steadily since then.
Hyakutake started searching for
It was about 20 minutes later when I unexpectedly came
comets in 1989, but he began serious searching only after he
quit his job as a newspaper photoengraver two years ago and across a cometlike object. Judging from constellations
moved to Kagoshima, where the skies are darker and clearer. glimpsed between passing clouds, it seemed to be situated
Since last July I have been avidly searching the night sky for southeast of Corvus. . . . I was very familiar with the star
comets from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. about four nights a month.
field of this area because I had often observed C/1995 Y1
For his comet hunting Hyakutake brings his giant, there. . . . I said to myself, I must be dreaming.
pedestal-mounted 25150 Fujinon binoculars to a rural
I left my binoculars for a while to calm myself down, and
mountaintop area about 15 km from his home to get a bet- then I started drawing the cometlike object relative to the
background stars. It was much more
ter view low to the east. His dedication
condensed than C/1995 Y1 . . . 11th
paid off on Christmas Day of 1995,
magnitude, 2.5' in diameter.
when he discovered his first comet,
Im a bit perplexed by all
It was 4:50 a.m. when I looked at
C/1995 Y1 (see the March issue, page
the attention paid to me,
my watch after marking its position. I
72). Five weeks later he found his fahad to confirm whether it was moving
mous one, C/1996 B2 (April issue,
when it is the comet that
or not. At 5:40 a.m. morning twilight
page 10).
deserves the credit.
began. I again went back to the binocuIn an interview that appeared in
lars. I couldnt confirm the motion. . . . I
Gekkan Tenmon (Monthly Astronomy)
concluded that the possible comet
in April, Hyakutake related the story of
his monumental find. I searched only four hours in two should be coming directly toward the Earth.
I came back home and checked for comets that had alnights in January, because we had a long spell of disagreeable weather since my discovery of C/1995 Y1 a month be- ready been discovered, but I couldnt find reports referring
fore. On January 30, as it was likely to clear up at dawn, I to the cometlike object in question. So I began to draw up a
left home for my observation place. I wanted to reach the report. Hyakutake sent the notice to Tokyos National Assite by 3:30 a.m., when the Moon would set in the west. The tronomical Observatory and to cometary orbit expert
sky was in a nice condition when I left home, but at the ob- Syuichi Nakano. At around 3 a.m. the next morning Nakano
faxed him that the comet was real.
serving site I found low clouds flowing from the west.
My discovery wasnt reported very widely by the JapaThe zenith began to clear around 4:00 a.m. I turned my
nese
media until recently, Hyakutake said in Chicago. My
binoculars to see C/1995 Y1. When the binoculars were
wife
cant make phone calls because the phone is always
pointing almost straight up, I managed to catch three objects
together, M101, NGC 5474, and then C/1995 Y1, a little ringing. Im a bit perplexed by all the attention paid to me,
smaller than M101. My comet was about 9th magnitude, 8' in when it is the comet that deserves the credit.
E. L. A.
diameter.

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

July 1996 Sky & Telescope

27

Freelance photographer Ken Matesich captured this March 25th view of Comet Hyakutake framed between two saguaro cacti near Casa
Grande, Arizona. The comet was then 0.102 astronomical unit (15.3 million kilometers) from Earth and 1.04 a.u. (156 million km) from the
Sun. Matesich used a 28-mm f/3.5 lens and Konica SR-G3200 film for this exposure lasting 4 minutes. Copyright 1996 by Ken Matesich.

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Sky & Telescope July 1996

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

The color and shape of Comet Hyakutake changed markedly between March 25th and April 7th, as seen in this pair of 5-minute exposures taken by Austrian astrophotographers Gerald Rhemann and Franz Kersche. They used a 71 2-inch f/2.2 Schmidt camera and
Kodak Gold 400 film. Left: Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun caused gas molecules in the coma and tail, principally C2, to fluoresce
green and blue when the comet was 1.0 astronomical unit (150 million kilometers) from the Sun. Right: Hyakutakes colors were
mixed with yellow-white from dust by the time the comet moved to within 0.75 a.u. of the Sun.

team discovered S2 (diatomic sulfur) in

Hyakutake using the Hubble Space Telescopes ultraviolet spectrograph. This is
the first definite detection of S2 in a
comet since its initial discovery during
IUE observations of C/1983 H1 (IRASAraki-Alcock) in 1983, Weaver announced. According to Richard M. West
(ESO), Strong S 2 lines were also detected in the UV splash spectra obtained

with the HST at the time of Comet

Shoemaker-Levy 9s collision with Jupiter in July 1994. On April 8th, Alan T.
Tokunaga (University of Hawaii) and
his colleagues found C 2H2 (acetylene)
emission in C/1996 B2 with the NASA
Infrared Telescope Facility. The comets
spectra have also revealed several as yet
unidentified emissions, which are currently being investigated.

7
C2

RELATIVE INTENSITY

comet as it sailed 15 million km past

Earth at more than 150,000 km per hour.
M. J. Mumma (NASA/Goddard Space
Flight Center) and colleagues made spectroscopic observations on March 23rd and
24th at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. They found
volatile molecules in the coma, including
H2O (water), HDO (deuterated water),
CO (carbon monoxide), CH4 (methane),
CH3OH (methyl alcohol), C2H6 (ethane),
HCN (hydrogen cyanide), and NH3 (ammonia). At about the same time Michel
Festou (Observatoire Midi Pyrnes) and
his team recorded Hyakutakes spectrum
with the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite. They identified emission lines from C2 (diatomic carbon),
CO2+ (ionized carbon dioxide), carbon
sulfide (CS), and CO, as well as C (atomic
carbon), O (oxygen), and S (sulfur).
On the night of March 2728 Gerardo
Avila (European Southern Observatory)
and colleagues obtained a low-dispersion optical spectrum of the comet with
a homemade spectrograph attached to a
4-inch Maksutov telescope in Garching,
Germany. As shown in the diagram at
right, the strongest emission lines were
the C2 Swan bands, which were responsible for the comets turquoise color. The
coloration brought memories of Comet
Levys 3rd-magnitude display in 1990
a green head and blue, slender gas tail
(S&T: December 1990, page 680). Many
other dust-poor comets have exhibited
similar hues and shapes. As Hyakutake
neared the Sun the C 2 emission was increasingly overpowered by the solar
continuum (sunlight reflected off cometary dust).
On April 1st Harold A. Weaver (Applied Research Corporation) and his

Spectrum of
Comet Hyakutake
C2

NH2?

[OI]

3
C2

2
1
0
4500

5000
5500
6000
WAVELENGTH (angstroms)

6500

A spectrum taken on
March 2728 shows several key emission lines
(spikes) as well as the
underlying continuum
(sunlight reflected from
cometary dust grains).
Gerardo Avila (European
Southern Observatory)
and his team obtained
the spectrum using a 4inch f/10 Maksutov telescope, an objective grating, and a CCD camera.

Two low-resolution optical spectra of Comet Hyakutake taken by amateurs. Note the
strong green and blue emissions from C2 (diatomic carbon) superposed on reflected sunlight (especially visible here in red). Left: On March 27th Akira Fujii placed a 60 prism
in front of his 200-mm f/4 lens for this 20-minute exposure on Fujichrome 400 film. The
sharp, bright spectrum at upper right is that of Polaris. Right: Maurice Gavins April 3rd
spectrum of the comet was obtained from Londons Worcester Park with a 45 objective
prism, an 85-mm f/2 lens, and a Starlight Xpress color CCD camera. The exposure lasted
20 seconds. The bright spectrum at upper left is that of Gamma Persei.

1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

July 1996 Sky & Telescope

29

Left: On the evening of March 2627 Phil Hudson of Fort Wayne, Indiana, made 2-minute exposures of Hyakutake every hour from 9
p.m. to 4 a.m. with a 28-mm f/3.5 lens and Konica 3200 film. Hudson then combined them to create this composite.
Right: A sight they said wed never see again: a comet over a city. Even from bright urban centers Comet Hyakutake turned out to be
a relatively easy naked-eye target. D. J. Harper of Yonkers, New York, recorded Hyakutake at 2 a.m. on March 27th next to the Empire State Building in downtown Manhattan. Harper took this 20-second shot from the sidewalk at the corner of 29th Street and
Madison Avenue with a 135-mm f/2.8 lens on Kodak Ektachrome P1600 film.

FAREWELL, HYAKUTAKE;
WELCOME, HALE-BOPP
In April the comet began to fade substantially. By the 12th it was running 2 to
212 magnitudes below prediction, according to John Bortle. Hyakutake is not
petering out, but its not performing as
expected, he said. The dust-production
rate is healthy but not spectacular. In
fact, Halleys rate was even better at the
same heliocentric distance. Bortle downgraded early predictions that Hyakutakes head might gleam at magnitude 2
or 5 postperihelion to only about magnitude zero at best. He estimated that
Southern Hemisphere observers would
see only a highly foreshortened, 20 tail
in mid-May as the comet emerged above
the dawn horizon (see last months issue,
page 71).
Hyakutakes performance during its
closest approach to Earth certainly qual30

Sky & Telescope July 1996

ified it as the Great Comet of 1996, declares Bortle. Its the most spectacular
one Ive seen in my life! Bortle has
bagged all the brilliant comets since 1957
Arend-Roland and Mrkos that year,
Ikeya-Seki in 1965, Bennett in 1970, and
West in 1976 (see the diagram on page
32). Unlike Hyakutake, which was high
in the evening sky where millions could
conveniently watch it, those comets had
their heads buried deep in the morning
twilight, which tended to compromise
the view.
After perihelion on May 1st, Hyakutake shrank and dimmed rapidly as it receded from both Sun and Earth. By early
June it is likely to be lost as a naked-eye
object. Nevertheless, Southern Hemisphere observers with large scopes should
be able to follow it through the summer
and early fall. Then Hyakutake disappears, not to be seen for 14,000 years.
1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

But even as this comet wanes, the next

spectacle is already on its way! Comet
Hale-Bopp, C/1995 O1, should be nearing naked- eye visibility as you read this
report (see the finder chart in the May
issue, page 25). And it is expected to
brighten until its lost in the sunset this
December. Plan to watch what could become the Great Comet of 1997 in the
east and northeast at dawn next February and March, and in the northwest at
dusk from mid-March through April
(S&T: November 1995, page 22).
How will Hale-Bopp compare to
Hyakutake? In some ways theyre opposites; Hale-Bopp seems to be about 100
times intrinsically brighter, but it will be
13 times farther away at closest approach to Earth. The result could be similar brightness but a substantially different appearance in its coma and tail. The
countdown has begun.