At one point the tail of that sucker stretched across MORE THAN HALF the night sky. With a fairly decent telescope you could even see it as it moved minute to minute.
Comets are fickle things. Would love for another big one to come out of nowhere like that, as Hale-Bopp also did the following year.
There is something very humbling about looking at the stars. We don't do it nearly enough these days.
Uh yeah... Not. But you could see the rotation of the earth appearing to make it move.
Comet West, february 1996, the one I remember. Was in a car heading for Yosemite at 3 am and was very surprised to see it very clearly in the low eastern sky. Sure would be great to see another one. Also looking forward to the total solar eclipse August 21, 2017.
Lucky you. I’ve been soured on comets since the complete bust of Kohoutek back in…’73?
“Oh, it’ll light up the night sky! It’s tail will stretch across the entire field of view! It’ll be visible for weeks! It will be spectacular!”
They wrote songs about it and I read books about comets and coudn’t wait to see it. And when December finally rolled around…
“Yes, the comet will be very, very low in the sky. You’ll need good binoculars to catch a glimpse of it. It’ll be around for a week.”
I’ve seen some very spectacular illustrations of comets that folks made before electricity and light pollution made muggle-viewing of comets nigh impossible.
I envy anyone that can see such things “in the wild” anytime, anyway they can!
I would drive home at night and see this ice cream cone spilled across the whole night sky. No one seemed to think it was important at the time even though I told them you’ll never see anything like this in your life again. I’ve seen a few comets since Hale-Bopp but none as spectacular. There are still some astronomical events coming up, however. There will be a total solar eclipse occurring right where I live this coming August.
I remember that one too.
This web site I just found when searching for “C/2016 U1 NEOWISE”.
https://theskylive.com.
This looks to be a pretty awesome site, but I know nothing about it. I’ve only used Sky View, Distant Suns, StarMap 3D, and other apps on my phone when I’ve been interested in figuring what start is which, or what’s going to show up soon, until now.
My friend and I pulled an all nighter on a work night to see Hyakutake from Mount Pinos. The tail was about 75 or 80° long. Not quite halfway across the sky but it sure seemed like it. :-) I recall a scientist at that time proving that even if the tail were visible to infinity it still would not have reached 90°.
I used to be a regular at Pinos on new moon Saturday nights, but the crowds became too much for me. Now we do Kennedy Meadows or red rock canyon or Springville.
Pretty much the whole sky, IIRC.
With a fairly decent telescope you could even see it as it moved minute to minute.
Telescope, Schmelescope! It covered the whole sky, remember? And you could watch it move if you could sit still for a minute. I don't know when there's ever been another like it.
I took my wife out that night, and we watched through the "moon roof" of my Honda Accord. I call those the "comet days" of Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp.
I saw that comet while my ship was cruising through the Indian Ocean. It was amazing.
Hale-Bopp was my favorite, which was visible about November 1996 to January 1997. For whatever reason, Hyakutake wasn’t very visible in southern Cal.
We are stargazers. The website Heavens-above.com alerts us to the Space Station sightings in our area, Iridiums flaring and all the satellites going across, with time, magnitude and direction. Have been looking for the comets, but it has been overcast lately. Stargazing is always good for the reminder that my problems are insignificant in comparison to the Universe.