Here, hot off one of the world's premier telescopes, is a portrait of Comet
Hale-Bopp, a "whopper of a comet," as described in uncharacteristically
plain English by one astronomer. Hale-Bopp, the astronomers say, is indeed
living up to its advance billing as one of the brightest and most
spectacular comets in recent memory. This image was captured by the WIYN
Telescope, a 3.5 meter telescope atop Kitt Peak, Ariz. WIYN, run by a
consortium that includes the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Indiana
University, Yale and the National Optical Astronomical Observatories, is
ideal for observing comets because of its very wide field of view (comets
take up a lot of sky) and special instrumentation. If you'd like to learn
more about this blazing ball of ice and dust, tune into our recent
treatise on Hale-Bopp.
Image courtesy of Walt Harris, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
