Comets of the 1990s
In 1996 and 1997, two comets graced the skies over North America, providing enjoyment to those of us who waited a lifetime to see Haley's Comet only to be disappointed by its lack of dazzle. Above is Hale-Bopp, photographed in the sky near Thibodaux, La., in early April, 1997. Below is Comet Hyakutake, which I photographed on March 22, 1996, also near Thibodaux. The red star in the photo is Arcturus.
All of these pictures, except for the spaceship, were taken with a 20-year-old Pentax K-1000 and an $8 mini-tripod I bought at Wal-Mart. The trick was to find a dark spot, away from the glare of city lights, on a cloudless night. I put the tripod on the roof of my car, set the f-stop to 2.8, the focus to infinity, the shutter speed to B and held the shutter button down and counted to 15 slowly. Sky & Telescope has a page on photo tips. The picture below is my favorite. It has the constellation Pleiades in the left upper corner and Hale-Bopp to the right.
There are lots of resources for people interested in comets and astronomy. Sky & Telescope has a site dedicated to comets. The Jet Propulsion Lab has a comet page too. A really good astronomy Web site is MyStars! Live. It's brought to you by Relative Data Products, the same people who developed MyStars!, what I believe is the best astronomy program for the PC. And if your interests are closer to home than comets, JPL has a neat Web site for Mars.