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Spectacular
Performance
B Y
E D W I N
L.
A G U I R R E
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.
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.
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.
24
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).
25
March 24 22:46 UT
March 24 23:46 UT
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.
26
March 26 02:30 UT
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.
28
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.
7
C2
RELATIVE INTENSITY
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.
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
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.