Sky & Telescope - July 2020 - 35

placement. The vernal equinox (March 20th), the comet's
closest approach (March 22nd), its maximum elongation
(approximately 45°), and farthest northern declination
(nearly 46°) all occurred within a few days of one another.
Stargazers at mid-northern latitudes were treated to a circumpolar spectacle for several weeks - a situation reminiscent of
Comet Bennett nearly three decades earlier. Moreover, during
this period the comet shifted from being primarily a morning
object to an evening one just as the Moon did the reverse. On
the evening of the full Moon (March 23rd), with Hale-Bopp
peaking, North Americans were awarded a 92% partial lunar
eclipse. The lucky observers (me included) who lived in the
Paciﬁc time zone were delighted to have the blackout occur at
the optimum hour for viewing the comet.
All these factors ensured that the Big Show played to
packed houses for its advertised run. By the end of its recordbreaking apparition, Hale-Bopp had surpassed magnitude 0
for two months. It remained a naked-eye object for more than
18 months, until late 1997, by which time it had descended
far into the southern sky, where it remains to this day.

K EN H E WIT T-WHIT E

Comet Tales
I have so many fond memories of Hale-Bopp: glimpsing it
naked eye as I counted Perseid meteors in August 1996; a
predawn peek from a jetliner near the end of a redeye ﬂight in
January 1997; and, amid weeks of rain and snow, catching the
comet between scudding clouds on the evening of the spring
equinox through the window of a busy restaurant!
Three nights after the restaurant sighting my wife and I
watched the lunar eclipse and Hale-Bopp perform a heavenly
pas de deux. What a unique and awesome performance! A
copper-colored disc hovered above our stand of Ponderosa
pines in the south while the two diaphanous tails of the
comet skirted the Milky Way in the north.
At nightfall on April 4th a cold wind of increasing power
drove us indoors. We turned off every light in the house and
gazed through our north-facing living room window as HaleBopp, a silver siren set against a black backdrop of Andromeda
stars, descended ever-so-gently behind moonlit ﬁrs. We felt
like we had box seats to the evening's cometary curtain call.
As twilight ebbed on April 10th, Hale-Bopp lit up the stage
with a terriﬁc supporting cast. The comet's gossamer dust tail,
fanning across Perseus, had ensnared the Demon Star, Algol.
The V-shaped Hyades cluster had captured a four-day-old
Moon, and the lunar crescent was creeping toward Aldebaran.
Taking to our telescopes around 9:30 p.m., we saw Aldebaran
wink out behind the earthlit lunar limb. Then we turned to
the comet. In my big Dob the nucleus was a headlight of magnitude -1 cocooned in aqua-tinged hoods. From this ﬂowed
the tenuous tails: one a curving fan of dust; the other an ion
streak. And thanks to some ethereal lighting, the scene got

even better. An aurora swelled over the north horizon, grew
stunningly luminescent, and sprouted green rays near the
comet. A rolling ribbon materialized out of thin air, mingled
with the comet's tails, and dissolved back into space. Sublime.

Gone, But Not Forgotten
The Great Comet of 1997 lives on in the memories of all who
saw it. For its two discoverers, July 23, 1995, was a date to
cherish. To this day, Alan Hale remains grateful for the way
in which the comet helped advance his career in space science
(see sidebar, page 30). Tom Bopp, who worked in the construction industry, once remarked that his life became a lot
more interesting post-discovery. Unfortunately, Tom passed
away in 2018, at the age of 68.
The comet bearing the names Hale and Bopp will outlast
us all. Back in 1997, Richard M. West (of Comet West fame)
looked ahead to the present day: "Just over two decades from
now, in 2020, [Comet Hale-Bopp] will be 43 a.u. from the
Sun and, assuming a diameter of approximately 20 km, the
apparent magnitude of the nucleus will be around 29 to 30."
The hibernating Hale-Bopp is in it for the long haul. About
12 centuries will pass before the distant inert iceberg reaches
aphelion some 370 a.u. from the Sun; 12 additional centuries
will elapse before it returns.
In the end, Comet Hale-Bopp made a stronger impression
on the lay public than any other recent comet and was likely
the most widely viewed comet in human history.
All the top-tier comets I described earlier came and went
in less than three decades. Alas, there hasn't been a celestial blockbuster since 1997. A quarter century has elapsed
between Hale-Bopp's discovery and the present day, yet on
average there should be a crowd-pleasing comet for Northern
Hemisphere skywatchers once every 10 to 20 years.
Time's up!

¢ Contributing Editor KEN HEWITT-WHITE has observed more
than 200 comets between 1967 and 2020.

u INDOOR COMET The author and his wife, Lynda, enjoyed a stunning view of Hale-Bopp from their darkened living room on April 4, 1997.
The photo was shot near the end of astronomical twilight as the brilliant
comet descended in the north-northwestern sky.
s k y a n d t e l e s c o p e . o r g * J U LY 2 0 2 0

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Sky & Telescope - July 2020

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