Comet Observation Home Page

Left: C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp. 1999 March 10.462, sum of 3 60 second exposures. The dust tail fan continues to be present despite the huge 7.9AU solar distance. The image is scaled to resemble a view through a large telescope. Taken from Loomberah NSW Australia with a 45cm f/5.4 Newtonian and AP-7 CCD ( from the Planetary Society Shoemaker NEO grant) Copyright 1999⌐Gordon Garradd. loomberah@ozemail.com.au

These finder charts for C/1999 M5 (LINEAR) as it moves near Polaris were provided by Dale Ireland. (Click on image for larger view.)

These orbit diagrams for C/1998 P1 (Williams) and C/1999 A1 (Tilbrook) were provided by Dale Ireland. (Click on image for larger view.)

Finder chart for C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) was provided by Dale Ireland. (Click on image for larger view.)

Click here to see previous images

Did you or someone you know see a bright naked-eye comet in the past, but you don't know which one it is?...This list will answer your question!

This page has lots of images... a selection of recent images can be found here (revised 3/23/99)...there are hundreds images in the complete archive. Also, check out other home pages with recent images.

The Edgar Wilson Award - A new award for (amateur) comet discoverers!!! (link to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams)

Last Updated 2 April 1999

Over the next few months my time to update the COHP, particularly for posting images, will be serverely limited. I am working on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission which is scheduled for launch in September. I will continue to post images when time permits, but that may be even less frequent than in the recent past. I still plan to update the observations on a regular basis...csm.

In this home page:

Comets Currently Visible (2/22/99)
Recent News and Observations (4/2/99)
Comets that will be Visible in the Near Future (2/23/99)
The Bright Comet Chronicles by John E. Bortle - 200 years of bright comets
Ephemerides for Current Visually Observable Comets (12/23/98)
Comet Light Curves (5/9/97)
Comet Definitions
Other Sources of Comet Information

Comet Images (7/25/97)
Other Pages Featuring Comet Images
The People Who Discover Comets

Other Places

NASA Home Page
JPL Home Page

Awards

The biggest reward for doing this home page is the positive feedback that I get and the knowledge that users find this page a useful service.

(Of course, I think it should have received four stars, but I am a bit biased.)

Statistics

Typically, about 1,000 individual users/computers access this page every day. These accesses create more than 15,000 entries per day in the access log. This amounts to an increase in the size of the access log of 1.5 Mbytes per day! However, the peak access rate during the C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) apparition was >>30,000 users. The peak usage was more than 550,000 hits per day.

Comments? (Please include your e-mail address. Often times your comments/questions require an individual response. I can't provide that if I don't know how to contact you!!)

Charles S. Morris / csm@encke.jpl.nasa.gov