Great Comets of the 1990s
The small photos of Comet Hyakutake and Comet Hale-Bopp in the initial
color astrophoto montage do not do them justice. Here they have been
reprocessed for a larger display. The photo of Comet Hyakutake (left)
was taken in March 1996, on the night of its closest approach to earth.
That night it was a brilliant fuzzball with a delicate tail that stretched
for 70 degrees across the sky (even in Princeton). This image was an
8-minute exposure on Fuji Super G 800 using a 180 mm f/2.8 Nikon lens.
Comet Hale-Bopp (right) was more conventional in appearance. It was a
much larger comet than Hyakutake, but, because it did not pass near the
earth, it did not have so great an apparent size. This image was a
6-minute exposure on Fuji Super G 800 using a 500 mm f/4 Nikon lens.
