
DATE: Thursday, April 3, 1997               TAG: 9704030395

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

CLUB TO HELP COMET-GAZERS SPY FRIENDLY SKIES

Welcome to amateur night.

Since Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995 by two backyard stargazers, amateur astronomers have had their day. Actually, their evening.

Comets are almost exclusively the possession of amateurs, who spend countless nighttime hours looking first here, then there, at the sky. Professional astronomers, on the other hand, usually have some specific spot of sky to examine and don't get around much, astronomically speaking.

Hence, with Hale-Bopp dominating the darkness this month, the night of the amateurs has come.

``Wow, it's wonderful. It's great. What a comet,'' said S. Kent Blackwell of the Back Bay Amateur Astronomers, a group of local amateurs who have been Hale-Bopp watching for months.

Starting this weekend, the public will get some comet-gazing help, as the Back Bay Amateur Astronomers set up binoculars and telescopes for three evenings of free viewing at Northwest River Park.

Hale-Bopp has received intense public interest, partly because it was discovered in July 1995 while it was still a billion miles from Earth, partly because it is so much larger than your run-of-the-mill comet (25 miles across as compared to 3 miles).

It also got publicity from UFO aficionados, who claim that a spaceship is trailing it. Interest renewed when the Heaven's Gate cult committed mass suicide in March, claiming that they were leaving Earth to meet the spaceship.

``Almost 80 percent of the people you talk to have seen the comet and they're not even interested in astronomy,'' Blackwell noted.

Scott Donnelly has also been gazing at the night sky for years. A comet as bright as Hale-Bopp is unusual, he said.

``Comets are notoriously a bust,'' he said. ``I mean, they find so many each year and they're only telescopic.

``You don't see them that often. Something that you can see (with the) naked eye is just . . . '' he paused, searching for an adequate adjective, ``wonderful. It's beautiful. It covers a tremendous patch of the sky.''

Hale-Bopp is far from a bust. It is now so bright in the early night sky that it can be easily seen with the naked eye. Small binoculars give a closer look, but the comet's tail is far too long to fit in a telescope's limited field of view.

The comet can be seen even from brightly lit urban areas, although the most spectacular views of the tail are from rural areas where artificial lights don't interfere.

Donnelly and Blackwell had no trouble pointing out the comet to folks who came to the Chesapeake Planetarium last week, although their binoculars were set up on a sidewalk next to the light-swathed city hall.

Donnelly pointed out the star constellations overhead: Orion the hunter, Leo the lion, Gemini the twins.

``When you get familiar with them, you don't even need a calendar,'' he said. ``They're like old friends up there because they're so familiar.''

A flight attendant, Donnelly likes to view the nighttime sky from airplanes. ``I like to take those red-eye flights because then you can watch it all night,'' he explained.

Donnelly was flying one night last summer when Comet Hyakutake was visible. ``We were at 37,000 feet,'' he recalled. ``The sky was pitch black. Hyakutake. It stretched halfway across the sky. Oh, God, that was a spiritual experience.''

Blackwell has spent numerous hours this winter and spring photographing Hale-Bopp from spots well away from the city lights, called dark-sky locations.

But in decades of observing the night sky, he has never discovered a comet. He can imagine how it would feel.

You're looking at a familiar spot in the sky, and you notice something fuzzy that isn't marked on your star charts, he said. First, you think your star chart isn't complete. But over time, you notice that the fuzzy spot has moved a little.

``Then,'' he said, ``you know Comet Blackwell's coming up.

``It would be great.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

WHERE TO SEE THE COMET

Comet Hale-Bopp is visible in the northwest sky between 7:15 and

8:15 p.m. It is bright enough to be seen even from urban areas,

although its tail is best seen from a dark location. The best

viewing will be through April 10. The comet will be visible through

early May, sinking lower in the sky and becoming dimmer each night.

IF YOU GO

What: Free public viewings of Comet Hale-Bopp through the

binoculars and telescopes of the Back Bay Amateur Astronomers.

When: Sunset to 8 p.m. on Friday, April 4; Saturday, April 5 and