Comet Hyakutake as photographed from Los Alamos, New Mexico

• 05:00 UT, March 19, 1996 My first photo attempt of Hyakutake....ASA 400 Seattle Photoworks film, using a 300 mm lens at f4.5, guided rather poorly due to a quick polar alignment of the 4" Unitron that I use for derotation of the image. 15 minute exposure. The tail hasn't really begun to blossom yet.
• 06:00 UT, March 20, 1996 Comet Hyakutake. A 10 minute exposure on Kodak ASA 1000 Royal Gold print film,using a 300mm lens at f4.5, guided piggyback on a tracking telescope. At least the stars are point images!
• 07:00 UT, March 21, 1996 Same as previous night, above. Three rays visible. I also show a 100 mm image (An Olympus 50 mm f1.8 lens, doubled), which was guided on a star in the tail during a 5 minute exposure.
• 06:25 UT March 22, 1996 The tail was much longer, and I switched to Fuji ASA 1600 print film, and a Nikon 105 mm, f2.5 lens, using only a 2.5 minute exposure.
• Approximately 07:30 UT March 23, 1996 A spectacular image! Excellent structure in the tail. The bright star to the right is Arcturus. Also with a 105 mm, f2.5 lens, and 2-3 minute guided exposure, using ASA 1600 Fuji print film. The photo was scanned into a 16 M color image at 300 dpi, and then reduced both in size and number of colors (256) for this little GIF file.
• Approximately 07:30 UT March 25, 1996, 2-3 minute exposure. I'm still using the 105 mm, but the tail is too long for this lens, and the tail is distinctly broader than before. Note the "Z-shaped" kink in the tail.
• No image on the night of March 25, 1996 (MST). I had heavy cloud cover early, and then light high clouds late.
• March 26, 1996 (MST). A good, clear night. The comet is near Polaris. I shot Kodak Ektachrome ASA 1600 color slide film, and Kodak ASA 3200 B&W print film, with both a 50mm f1.4 lens and a 24mm wide-angle f2.5 lens. The tail extends from Polaris into the cup of the Big Dipper. After the moon set at 12:40AM, the tail could be seen covering nearly 90 degrees of the sky!
  • 07:45 UT, March 27, 1996 (350kb GIF)90 second 50mm f1.4 image of the comet using Kodak Professional ASA 3200 B&W print film . The moon has just set, and the tail is spectacular, but way too long for this lens! I scanned in this 4x5" B&W print at 300 dpi, and then reduced the GIF file by a factor of 2x in both dimensions, while inverting the gray scale.
  • Wow!(350kb B&W gif) Using my OM-1 with a 24 mm Tamron f2.5 wide angle lens, and Kodak ASA 3200 B&W print film, here is the comet and a tree in my back yard!. 60 second exposure at about 08:45 UT, March 27, 1996. The lens has some distortion on the brightest stars (for example, in the Big Dipper), and in the future, for Hyakutake's next orbit, I'll stop the lens down one or two stops.
• 04:30 UT April 1, 1996. OM-1 with 300 mm Olympus f4.5 lens, 5 minute guided exposure. The moon really kills the tail, and the comet is fainter now, as well.

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