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Comets - Visitors from Outer
space
In the past years we are fortunate to have the opportunity to see the return of Comet Halley(85/6), the appearance of bright Comet Hyakutake (96) and Comet Bopp -Hale (97). I also have a glimpse of Comet William (98) while it flared up to mag 3.0 near Sirius. Except for Comet Hyakutake,
all comet photographs were taken using SLR camera on fixed tripod with
a fast film. Comet Hyakutake was shot with camera piggyback on my C5+ tracking
the stars. This allow me to have ~ 2 minutes exposure through my
study window! Halley's Comet was shot in Changi Point with the then
popular fast film - Kodak ASA 1000.
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Comet Hyakutake put on a fine display in Singapore Sky. I first picked up the comet while it was still a pre-dawn 'fuzzy' ball near Libra / Scorpion. The first image taken on March 22 23:00 show Hyakutake between Omicron and Xi Bootes on March 22. ( mid lower frame). Arcturus - is the orange color star near the top frame.
Here Comet Hyakutae spotting a tail in the constellation of Bootes. The bright star on the right hand corner is gamma bootes. A star shined through the comet's 'head' or nucleus. In the middle of the frame is a cascading strings of mag 7-8 stars which look like a mini Scorpion. All the stars are near the limit of SkyAtlas 2000.0.