MPEG movie of almost one full rotation of the core of comet Hale-Bopp. Each exposure is 10 seconds at intervals of about 45 minutes. It shows the main dust jet and 'hood' generation rather well.

The rotation of the nucleus of Comet Hale-Bopp is shown between March 25 and 29 1997. Each image was shot at approximately 02:50 U.T. Each image is a sum of six, 5 second exposures. Processed using a weighted unsharp mask constructed with IDL.
Animated file courtesy of Sky and Telescope.
24 bit monitor required for best viewing of this image.

Numerous dust shells

Authors: Cyril Birnbaum, Eric Frappa
Location: Pic de Midi Observatory (France)
Optics: 55 cm telescope and HiSiS 44 camera.

Zoom on the inner coma. We used a radial gradient to enhance the dust shells.

Left image 03/23/97 00:23 UT, Right image 03/23/97 10:07 UT 1 second exposures. Unsharp Mask applied. 9hrs 44 minutes elapsed between images. Note the shape and alignment of the pseudonucleus. The right image plume at bottom of nucleus ends up as the second shell out in the second image.

10 seconds exposure. The field of view is 0.3 degrees (long axis) by 0.2 degrees (short axis). Flat fielded and dark subtracted. The image has been processed using Mira. A 20 by 20 median filtered masked image was subtracted from 105% of the original. A false colour palette was then added.

This false color image of Hale-Bopp is a composite of 20 - 15 second exposures taken with an Apogee AP-7 CCD. The first exposure was taken on 03-22-97 at 00:51:38 UT, the last exposure was taken 01:05:07. The images were enhanced to show the jets from the nucleus.

Field: 12' x 8'. Ten 1 second exposures.

This infrared image of Hale-Bopp (obtained at a wavelength of 3.672 micron) was recorded with the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at Mauna Kea Observatory, on March 8, 1997. The observations were done during DAYTIME when the comet was invisible to the human eye, but still could not hide from special IR detectors! During the day, the sunlight heats the ground and the air around the telescope, creating a lot of turbulence that tends to blur the observations, which is why this image appears less sharp than the ones obtained during the night.

This false color image depicts the heat emitted by the dust: the brighter the color the more dust is present. The field of view is extremely small. Each pixel of this image corresponds to roughly 45 miles at the distance of the comet's nucleus, which is a "dirty snow ball" approximately 25 miles in diameter. Because of the Sun's irradiation, the uppermost layers of the nucleus are sublimating (i.e., the ice is evaporating directly from solid to gas), dragging along large amounts of dust (tons per second) that hide the nucleus from our direct view. Ultimately, this dust spreads out and forms the visible (dust) tail of the comet. This image was used to center an infrared spectrograph on the comet.

Both the main image and the inset have been processed using unsharp masks. The images show structure in both the inner and outer coma with around seven jets and at least five waves.