Re: Any good memorable comets coming soon? Like Ikeya-Zhang Hale-Bopp


Paul - Regarding you comments, there is nothing subjective about my
statement. To the average amateur astronomer who saw H-B or Hyakutake,
from a typical observing site, many comets of the past were far more
spectacular in overall impressiveness.

Indeed, I saw Hyakutake on a number of nights from a site with
excellent sky conditions and could trace the tail 70 degrees
(incidentally, the reported 100+ degree tails were nonsense and
physically quite impossible under the circumstances). However, that
comet's tail was of quite low surface brightnes and the typical amateur
report credited it with a length of more like 10-15 degrees and very
faint at that. Likewise, while H-B did have a nice bright coma, except
for the first few dgrees, its tail was generally of low surface
brightness as well and relatively few amateurs saw more than ten
degrees or so in its span.

There is no selective memory involved when I say that the perhaps half
a dozen Great Comets visible between 1957 and 1976 out-shown both H-B
or Hyakutake. In fact, I saw each and, since comets have always been my
specialty, I can objectively compare one with another, having viewed
them all under equally good skies and with considerable observing
experience.

1957 Arend-Roland. Peaked at -1, displayed very bright anti-solar AND
sunward-pointing tails, spanning a total of 45 degrees.

1962 Seki-Lines. Reached -3 and had an intensely bright, dramatically
curved, 20 degree tail.

1965 Ikeya-Seki. Visible briefly in the daytime with the unaided eye
with a magnitude of -8 to -14. After perihelion passage it unfurled a
25 degree tail with the highest surface brightness of any comet in the
20th century, looking over its entire length like a brilliant auroral
ray. Fully 15-20 degrees of nakedeye tail wase even reported visible
from within NYC!

1970 Bennett. Zero magnitude with a 20-25 degree, brilliant, tail. I
recall one morning watching this comet rise, complete with 5 degrees of
tail, from indoors while seated in the room watching TV with the room
lights on and simply glancing out through a closed window, waiting for
it to get up enough to properly observe!

1976 West. Attained -3; visible during the daytime with binoculars
looking like a fuzzy version of Venus and seen before sunset with just
the unaided eye. It displayed 5 tails (the result of its nucleus
breaking up into independant comets), the longest attaining fully 35
degree and showing a distinct deep reddish color!

In addition, during this same period, there were somewhat lesser but
still very bright comets like Comet Mrkos, of zero to first magnitude
with a 15 degree tail in 1957, Comet Wilson-Hubbard in 1961 at 2nd to
3rd magnitude with a 25 degree tail. Plus, Comet Pereyra, 3rd magnitude
with a 15 degree tail in 1963 and White-Ortiz-Bolelli in 1970 at 1st to
2nd magitude and displaying a dozen degrees of tail.

Any of these first 5 or 6 most any observer today would placed well
above H-B or Hyakutake if they had a chance to compare them side by
side. Just because you or those today have never seen objects of such
grandeur, don't think they are products of a hazy memory. You'll be
convinced when a really good one comes along again.

JBortle

.

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