ONE OF THE BEST COMETS OF THE CENTURY
Image of comet Hale-Bopp that I took in Italy .
Look the double tail !!
COMET Hale-Bopp was SO BRIGHT that you could see it trough the clouds !
The Hale-Bopp comet photographed on April 6 1997 at Bivigliano, near Florence
at 500 meters a.s.l. with a 135 mm objective lens (telescope piggy-back).
3 minutes guided exposure on 1000 ISO color film. The image was later digitized
using a flat-bed color scanner and slightly contrasted by computer processing.
Next time will come round will be in 2400 years.......
Last time the comet came around was 4200 years ago...
The nucleus is quite big : 40 Km in diameter. The comet has been producing
something like 26 millions of tons of water per day !!, with the effect that
it's diameter is decreasing by 5 cm each day.
The comet is rotating in almost 12 hours , and is emitting most
of the material from a small region near the south pole;
that's why in a telescopic view we could see a spiral projected in the sky !
For more information you should go and visit one of the best WEB sites about
comets WHERE YOU'LL FIND LINKS TO MAPS, ETC.. :
Comet Observation Home Page
Or read the following information sheet, produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA):
Hale Bopp information sheet.
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