DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997                TAG: 9703100048

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Focus 

SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  183 lines

A HALE AND HEARTY COMET

Coming to a Sky Near You

Hale-Bopp, billed as the most spectacular comet in ages, reaches its peak in the night sky later this month. Better not miss the show - it won't return for thousands of years.

Coming soon to a dark sky near you: the Comet of the Century.

Actually, it's already here and has been since July. Anyone who is inclined to rise before dawn can see it in the morning sky.

But Comet Hale-Bopp becomes quite civilized later this month and will appear in the evening sky as well, easily visible with the naked eye.

This is being billed as the comet of the century, the biggest, the brightest, the most spectacular of celestial bodies. It does, in fact, have the largest head - 25 miles across - of any known comet and was discovered while at a greater distance from Earth than usual.

``We do expect this comet to become very bright, perhaps one of the brightest comets ever seen,'' said Robert Hitt, director of the Chesapeake Planetarium. ``I think this comet will be seen by anyone who makes the effort to look for it.''

Hale-Bopp, named for the two amateur astronomers who discovered it in 1995, is easily visible just before dawn. However, it does require some effort to see it, as Hitt noted. You have to be up between 4 and 5:45 a.m., looking just north of due east.

If you hold your fist at arm's length, the comet is about 10 to 12 fists up from the horizon. Of course, that means you have to have an unobstructed view of the eastern horizon.

The comet looks like a really bright star. With binoculars, you can see the tail.

Now, the good news. By the middle of this month, the comet will appear in the evening sky, right after sunset. It will rise higher and higher as the days go by, and remain easily visible through April.

On March 22, it will be at its closest approach to Earth. That's when, according to chatter on the Internet, a spaceship carrying aliens is supposed to slingshot out from behind it and head for us.

Comets have always been associated with the end of the world, the right hand of an angry God, spreading death and pestilence. Hasn't happened yet. Don't hold your breath this time.

S. Kent Blackwell, an amateur astromer in Virginia Beach, has been watching Hale-Bopp for months, when it could only be seen through a telescope.

``It just looked like a fuzzy spot in a field of stars,'' he said. ``It's pretty neat looking at something that far distant - 650 million miles.''

That is Hale-Bopp's true claim to fame. This comet set a record by being discovered while it was well beyond Jupiter - farther from Earth than any other comet discovered by backyard amateurs.

Hale-Bopp's nucleus, the big round part, is estimated to be at least 25 miles across. By comparison, Halley's comet is only 10 miles across. The average harbinger-of-doom comet is 2 to 3 miles wide.

Hale-Bopp will stay comfortably distant from Earth, about 100 million miles at its closest approach. Still, it is expected to put on as good a show as Comet Hyakutake did last spring, and Hyakutake was only 10 million miles from earth.

``It should just get better,'' said Bruce Hanna, director of the Pretlow Planetarium at Old Dominion University. ``The tail should get longer. Right now, the tail isn't extremely long but it's pretty and diffuse.''

Comets are made mostly of ice, which is made mostly of water, methane and ammonia. That's why they earned the nickname of ``dirty snowballs.'' As they approach the sun, comets start heating up and gases start spewing off the head, which prompted the ancients to call them ``hairy stars.'' To confuse the matter, that gas trail is called the tail.

``We expect this comet to have a tail at least 100 million miles long,'' Hitt said. ``That should cover many degrees of the sky.''

Other astronomers are more cautious, pointing out that our viewing angle may make the tail seem shorter than it is. Well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Seeing should be easy, come late March, early April.

``In April, around April 7, will be the new moon and the comet will be in the western sky,'' Hitt said. ``Perhaps a really dazzling sight would be the comet and the crescent moon around April 8, 9 and 10 in the western sky.''

If that isn't enough, a lunar eclipse will take place on the night of March 23-24.

``I don't think I can recall any historical notations of seeing a comet during an eclipse of the moon,'' Blackwell said.

Of course, that's the day after the spaceship is supposed to announce itself. What's this all about?

Well, an early photograph of Hall-Bopp showed a bright object behind it, sort of looking like Saturn, but in the wrong celestial neighborhood. The amateur astronomer who took the picture announced that his star chart did not show a star in that location.

The story was leaped upon by alien abduction devotees and others, who decided it could be a boatload of E.T.'s cosmic cousins. Scientists spent a good deal of time last fall debunking the notion, and saying the object was a defraction spike, sort of a lens flare in the photograph, off Star SAO 141894.

However, the World Wide Web site for ``The Great Comet of 1997'' is subtitled, ``What the Hale is really going on?'' and fans keep insisting that science is claiming fiction when it should, in fact, be paying attention to the X-Files claim that ``The truth is out there.''

And that's what all the fuss is about.

Once the comet moves into the night sky, it will become easier to see.

You will probably be able to view this comet even if you stay in your own backyard, and the streetlights stay in the front. If you can see a few stars from where you are, you should be able to see a fuzzy ball that is the comet.

But if you really want a treat, find a dark-sky location, which means out in the country where there are no artificial lights to interfere. That's when the tail becomes visible. And since this comet won't be back for somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 years, depending on whom you ask, this is your only chance.

All you need are eyes.

As an example, Hanna cites a telephone call he had one recent morning. A man said he had been walking his dog at dawn and he had seen a bright thing in the sky. What was it?

Barring spaceships, it was Hale-Bopp. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by S. KENT BLACKWELL

This photograph of Comet Hale-Bopp was taken March 7 over Currituck

Sound in North Carolina.

Graphic

Comet watchers wait, hope

For complete copy, see microfilm

FAMOUS COMETS:

Halley's Comet, first seen around 240 B.C., returning every 76

years.

Comet Swift-Tuttle, first seen in 69 B.C., returning every 130

years.

Great Comet, first seen in 1843, returning every 513 years.

Comet Bennett, first seen in 1969, returning every 1,678 years.

Comet Kohoutek, first seen in 1973. Unknown when it will return.

Comet West, first seen in 1975, returning every 558,300 years.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, first seen in 1993 and never returning,

as it collided with Jupiter in 1994.

Source: The World Book Encyclopedia

Comet History

The appearance of a comet is called an apparition. That gives you

a hint of the fear comets have caused through the ages.

At various times, comets have been thought to herald the birth

and death of great men, to spread disease with their tails, to

represent the sins of man and the vengeance of an angry God, to have

caused Noah's flood and really good wine.

The end of the world has been associated with comets many times,

including predictions of the end on June 13, 1857; May 20, 1773; and

various dates in 1843.

In 1578, a Lutheran bishop wrote that comets are. . . ``the thick

smoke of human sins, rising every day, every hour, every moment full

of stench and horror, before the face of God, and becoming gradually

so thick as to form a comet, with curled and plaited tresses, which

at last is kindled by the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme

Heavenly Judge.''

ON THE NET

Comet sites abound on the Internet. Each of these has links to

other sites:

Sky & Telescope magazine

http://www.skypub.com/

Hale-Bopp homepage

http://www.halebopp.com/

NASA-JPL

http://newproducts.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/

WHEN TO SEE IT

Comet Hale-Bopp is visible in the morning sky just before

sunrise, just north of due east, through March 19.

About that time, the comet also will become visible in the

evening sky, low in the northwest just after twilight. Each night,

Hale-Bopp will be a little higher in the sky and a little easier to

find.

March 23 is a big night. A partial lunar eclipse will lessen

light interference from the full moon, and the comet should be more

easily seen. An added bonus is the planet Mars, which will be

visible to the upper right of the eclipsed moon.

March 24 through April 10 will be the peak comet-watching dates,

provided the weather cooperates with clear skies. Look in the

evening sky, up to three hours after sunset, in the northwest.

After April 23, moonlight interferes and the comet will be fading

as it moves away from Earth.

For the best view, find a dark spot, away from city lights. If

you don't mind traveling, local astronomers find dark skies around

Currituck Sound; Coinjock, N.C.; locations in Suffolk and west; and

the Eastern Shore.

Source: local astronomers, Sky and Telescope Magazine's Web site

at http://www.skypub.com/ KEYWORDS: COMET

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