Comet Hale-Bopp
at the UH Institute for Astronomy
Comet Hale-Bopp is now moving away from the inner
Solar System. As it
receives less energy from the Sun, the cometary activity is slowing
down, the tail is disappearing and the comet will rapidly become too
faint to be observed with small telescope. While this marks the end of
Hale-Bopp's public performance, it is not the end of the story: we
plan to continue observing it as long as possible. The decrease and
cessation of a comet's activity give very interesting information on
its composition and history, so we are trying to observe comets as far
as possible from the Sun. A typical comet nucleus has a diameter of 1
to 10 km, and is extremely dark, so that task is far from easy and
requires big telescopes and very long exposures; in the case of Comet
Hale-Bopp, we hope a to have an easier task, as we know that the
nucleus is very bright. For more information, check out Karen Meech's
Distant Comet
Reseach page, and for an example of tricky observation,
have a look at the faintest Solar System object ever observed: Comet
Halley at the distance of Uranus, which is also the last image of
that comet.
We will continue to add images and information on Hale-Bopp, so come
and visit us again.
Images and Spectra
Images and spectra of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) obtained by
University of Hawaii astronomers.
(Last images added May 9, 1997).
Other Comet Hale-Bopp WWW documents
These locations have additional up to date information on
Comet Hale-Bopp:
IfA documents
Other documents
"Alien Spacecraft," "NASA cover up"
and other FAQ usually not answered
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Institute for Astronomy Home Page
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Comments?
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Richard J. Wainscoat --- Olivier R. Hainaut
rjw@ifa.hawaii.edu --- hainaut@ifa.hawaii.edu
Update: Sun Jul 13 13:48:29 1997
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since March 10 17:30