Hale Bopp

The Teton Range and Comet

Author: B. D. Wehrfritz
Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Optics: Nikon 8008s camera, Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens at 80mm.
Exposure: 2 seconds on Fuji 800 Super G Plus print film.

Yes! It is THE GRAND TETON, CRESCENT MOON AND HALE-BOPP! These two photos were taken in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming on Thursday evening May 8, 1997. Using the azimuth and altitude data for 10pm MDT for this moon-comet conjunction, and a Brunton compass, I diligently scouted a location to place the moon and comet over the Grand Teton. The final location was just off a dirt road on the east side of Antelope Flats, 2 miles east of the Glacier View turnout on Highway 89. The Shadow Mountain road was closed beyond there due to melting snow and mud!
This photo was taken at 9:36pm MDT. The peaks left to right are: South Teton and Nez Perce, Middle Teton (with the moon just above it), Grand Teton, Mt Owen, Teewinot, and then descending into Cascade Canyon on the far right.

The Grand Teton and Hale-Bopp

Author: B. D. Wehrfritz
Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Optics: Nikon 8008s camera, Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens at 200mm.
Exposure: 4 seconds on Fuji 800 Super G Plus print film.

This photo was taken at 9:41pm MDT. The moon is slipping into the saddle between the Middle Teton and the Grand Teton. The comet is just above the Grand Teton, which is 13,770 feet high.
Many thanks to Mack Frost (mfrost@trib.com) for acting as the `Producer' for these photos: Telling me about the moon-comet conjunction, providing me with the basic from the shareware program Hale-Bopp Finder from Klass-M Software to aid in finding the `right' location, scanning the photos into his computer, and sending them out to the world.

Picture taken at 6:30 PM local time.
You can also see a full-sized image.

Picture taken at 6:30 PM local time.
A plane crossed the field of view during the exposure.

Conjunction : Earth Moon and Comet

Author: Dewey Vanderhoff
Location: Buffalo Bill Reservoir, Wyoming
Optics: Nikon F2AS with Micro-Nikkor 55 mm f/2.8 lens, wide open for thirty seconds on Fuji 800.

The May 8 conjunction of the new crescent Moon and receding Comet Hale-Bopp was spectacular from northwest Wyoming, thanks to exceptionally clear skies and calm conditions. We observed from the eastern shore of the Buffalo Bill reservoir out across some estuaries that captured the reflection of the comet and moon as they descended toward the Absaroka Mountains.
"Conjunction : Earth Moon and Comet " was photographed with Hale-Bopp less than nine degrees above the true horizon , at 10 PM +/- Thursday May 8 ( UT 4:00 May 9). Since Wyoming skies are relatively pristine, we often see and photograph celestial objects right down to the skylines and horizons. But the Thursday conjunction of the New Moon and Old Comet was especially sweet...seen once in the sky and again as abstract reflections in Buffalo Bill Reservoir.

Two views of Hale-Bopp and the new crescent moon shortly after sunset the evening of May 8 north of Pierre, South Dakota. The first photo, taken at 10:05 CDT, shows Hale-Bopp over the 770-megawatt powerplant of the Oahe Dam (enough electricity to run a city the size of Denver). The next was taken about 10:15 CDT over Lake Oahe itself.

Luck was with me and a bank of relatively thin clouds rose from the west at just the right time to keep the brightness of the Moon down so that I could expose for the comet and still get a reasonable image of the crescent Moon.