Comets

Observing comets has been a lifelong passion of mine. I observed my first comet on 1973 November 30. This was comet Kohoutek and it was seen with my 60-mm Jason-Empire refractor. I photographed my first comet on 1976 March 5. This was comet West and the images were obtained with a Yashica 35mm camera, using GAF 500 film, mounted piggyback on my 15-cm Criterion Dynascope.

I have visually observed somewhere over 150 comets and have photographed many of the brighter ones, including West (1976), Kohler (1977), IRAS-Araki-Alcock (1983), Hyakutake (1996), and Hale-Bopp (1997). Once the observatory was set up, I imaged 10 different comets in the first month of operation.

C/2006 M4 (SWAN)

C/2006 P1 (McNaught)