Below are some pictures I took of Hale-Bopp at Vasquez Rocks on March 25, 1997, and at Joshua Tree National Park on March 30. All pictures except the last one were taken at Joshua Tree.
Each picture was made with just an ordinary 35mm camera (Canon AE-1) with the standard 50 mm lens. I used very fast film (1600 ASA Fuji print film) with a 20 second exposure. For more information, check out Comet Photography for Everyone on the Sky &. Telescope page.
Note the comet's 2 tails. The white dust tail goes to the right. The blue gas ion tail angles up and to the right.
The line towards the lower right is an airplane trail, not the famous Hale-Bopp UFO. In the upper-center is the double cluster of Perseus. A flash was used to briefly illuminate the foreground joshua tree during the exposure. Car headlights lit up the hill (Cap Rock) at the right.
In the upper-center is the double cluster of Perseus. A flash was used to briefly illuminate the foreground joshua tree during the exposure.
At the bottom-center, just to the left of the big joshua tree, is the Andromeda Galaxy (see the finder chart). The arms extend up and down from the bright nucleus (easier to see in the original print than in this scan).
In the upper-center is the double cluster of Perseus.
In the upper-center is the double cluster of Perseus. Note the structure visible within the blue, gas tail.
This was at Vasquez Rocks. Going to Vasquez Rocks was a test run for the more serious trip we planned the following week to Joshua Tree. I was missing a piece of my tripod (this is why you do test runs:-), so this was taken with the camera resting on a rock. The Andromeda Galaxy is visible barely above the trees at the lower left (see the finder chart).
Last updated: Mon Apr 14 13:03:45 PDT 1997
