Comet Hale-Bopp on Mar 9 1997 early morning

Date & Time:	Mar 9 1997, 3:45 JST(+0900), 5min. Exp.
Optical:	TAKAHASHI 16cm(6.3") epsilon (f=530mm, F3.3)
	Auto-guided with TAKAHASHI EM-200 Equatorial
Camera:	VIXEN VX-1
Film:	Fujicolor Super G Ace 400
Location:	Hara vil., Nagano pref.

After 3 am, I noticed that a dimmed white ray was stretching perpendicular to the mountain ridge of Mt. Yatsugatake in northeast direction. I recognized that the ray was a dust tail of the comet Hale-Bopp, soon the coma put out a face from the ridgeline.
The comet in that day positioned in the constellation of Lacerta about 18 degrees ESE from Deneb in Cygnus. Apparent brightness can be estimated as 0th magnitude, almost the same with Vega in Lyra. The geocentric distance has approached to 1 a. u. (150 million km). It is expected that the tails will be long and wide toward the closest approach to the Earth on Mar 23.

HB on the Pacific Ocean

HB with North America Nebula

		Copyright(c) 1997 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved.
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