Impressed with Hale-Bopp's performance from Newark during the week, I shot down to Fremont Peak Friday night 2/28. Arriving at 11 pm, I expected to find a number of other observers, but the area behind Rick's house was empty. Conditions were nearly perfect. Temps in low 50s and 0 wind. Seeing fair, transparency good. The moon had not yet risen yet, as I hurriedly set up the AP Traveler and GM-8 mount. Hurriedly, only because I was tired and wanted to get a little rest before HB rose. About 11:30 another vehicle arrived with someone inquiring if the 30-inch was in use. He went on up the hill, never to be seen again.
I woke up at 3:45 am and could easily see HB through the tinted windows of my 4-Runner. Stepping outside, I was partially blinded by a last quarter moon on the meridian.
HB was wonderful in the 4-inch Traveler and the 35mm Panoptic. That yielded ~18X! The best views were with a pair of 30mm Ultima eyepieces in conjunction with the Zeiss Bino-View. Visually I could detect a bluish tint to the forward leading bow wave just ahead of the nucleus. The dust tail is very much pronounced and is easily visible to the naked eye, reaching about 2 degrees visually in the moonlight.
Standing the shadows of our favorite trees, with averted vision, I could detect nearly 3 degrees of ion tail. 7x35 binoculars revealed ~10 degrees of ion tail, and ~5 degrees of dust tail.
Comet West this is not! The tail is still much too faint for any compairson. For some very interesting images of Comet west, check S&T, May 1976. As you look at those astro-photos you will realize that high speed films and hypersensitizing were just about non-existent those days. Yet, the pictures of Comet West exhibit an amazing amount of tail detail in very short exposures.
Back to HB. The region of the comet that I have been referring to as the "fan" is now easily discernable as a series of three distinct fountians pointing toward the sun and bending away under the pressure of the solar wind. Looks like a thumb and two fingers. Brightness wise, the comet is certainly pushing toward first magnitude.
Looking forward to later this week when the moon finally gets out of the way. From about the 6th to the 20th we'll have minimum interference from the moon.
Happy hunting.
ciao
jg