Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
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Comet Hyakutake, 28mm Lens, KHartnett
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Comet Hyakutake, 28mm Lens

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Comet Hyakutake, 28mm Lens, KHartnett
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Comet Hyakutake, 28mm Lens

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Description

Taken around 2:30am on the morning of March 25, 1996, very near the time of the comet's closest approach. Taken from the grounds of Hopewell Observatory, outside Haymarket VA. Haymarket is about an hour west of Washington DC. It was a windy night and I set up my 8" Meade Newtonian on the grounds outside the observatory building, and "piggy-backed" my camera and used various focal length lenses. The skies were pretty dark, with limiting magnitude around 5.5 or 6, except when looking back toward Washington DC.

The comet was magnificent visually. One could easily see 20 degrees of tail, with hints of more. It was long and straight, very close visually to what was captured in this photograph. From home north of DC in the Maryland suburbs, the head and coma of the comet were large and fuzzy but it was difficult to really see any kind of tail. I'm forever grateful that I took the time and energy to drive away from the city to see this comet from a darker sky. What a memorable sight! Locate the Big Dipper in this shot and you can appreciate just how long the tail was!

I used Konica 3200 ASA film and exposed for about 2 minutes at f/5.6.

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Comet Hyakutake, 28mm Lens, KHartnett