Comet Hale Boop

Ice beyond the Alps

We are deep in the spring 1997 and another ice climbing season is gone. Some of us will start looking for ice in the higher folds of the Alps, and the little ice left on the Tacul goulottes is already been hammered to death. Why not looking for some more exotic destination for our never ending maniacal quest?

A comet seems to be a good place for a start. Tons of ice all the year around (and a cometary year is always on the long side), great views, plenty of athmosphere, not much crowd, low if any gravity which makes solo climbing a real breeze. Not close to any road really, but once you are there you can climb forever.

All images were scanned to a Kodak PhotoCD and were digitally elaborated with Adobe Photoshop 3.0 or 4.0.

March 9, 1997

Early in the morning Hale Boop flew by the Milky Way in Cygnus. The prominent red nebulosity on the right is the NGC 7000 complex. Two frames of the comet and four of the nebula were shot, digitally processed, overimposed and composed to obtain the final image. Kodak P1600 (pushed to 1600 ASA), 100 mm f 2.8, 6 mn exposure for each frame. 1.46 MB jpg

March 21, 1997

Later in the month the comet descended lower and lower in the morning sky. Overlay of two frames. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 300 mm f 4.0, 8 mn exposure for each frame. .32 MB jpg.

A wide field view as the first light was breaking. The tiny fuzzy spot on the lower left corner is the Andromeda galaxy. Overlay of two frames of 30 and 60 sec exposure. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 50 mm f 1.8. The greenish light on the lower left corner comes from the lights of the town of Lucca. .33 MB jpg Finder chart

March 27, 1997

Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 300 mm f 4, two 8 mn exposure.

April 1, 1997

On April Fools Day I drove for an hour to get to what I thought was going to be a great spot. The day was extremely clear and the weather stayied fine until I setted up the telescope. Suddenly big grey clouds came from the south, and stopped right over the comet. I drove back north like a mad man, while the comet was growing brighter and brighter just outside of the car windows. When I finally stopped I had time for a single exposure before of more clouds. The yellow light is due to the reflections of the city lights. One plane and one bright satellite left trace of their passage. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 100 mm f 2.8, 4 mn exposure. .44 MB jpg.

April 2, 1997

I shot two 60 sec exposures separated by only a few minutes at the primary focus of my C8. I thought that the proper motion of the comet was not going to show but I was completely wrong. The two frames were overimposed by aligning the density profiles of the coma, and so each star appears doubled. The images were processed as grayscales and heavily unsharp filtered to enhance the jets coming out of the coma. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 1600 ASA), 2000 mm f 10. .15 MB jpg.

April 5, 1997

We drove for over two hours to an amazing sunset that was soon killed by the fog moving on from the sea. With the fog came a chilly wind that bumped the telescope all over the places, while I frantically tried to get the only exposure of the evening. This explains the irregular shape of the star images. Kodak P1600 (pushed at 800 ASA), 300 mm f 4.0, 8 mn exposure. .35 MB jpg.

April 7, 1997

Kodak P1600 (pushed at 800 ASA), 100 mm f 4.0, 14 mn exposure. .30 MB jpg.

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Send anything that comes to mind to Gimmi Ratto gimmi@in.pi.cnr.it