Observers: G. Szokoly, A Connolly
Location: Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona
Date: March 22, 1996
These two shots were take at the Kitt Peak National Observatory at around 5:15AM on 3/22/96 using the Mayall 4m telescope in the B (blue) band with the T2KB chip in primary focus. The sky was a bit cloudy, which made this exposure possible (the comet was around 1.2 magnitude bright, which saturated the 38 inch telescope in 1-2 seconds -- the 4m is 156 inch). The images are raw, but in the near future we have no time to do the proper flat fielding, etc. so we provide them as is. The pattern in the background of the first image is due to this.
The first image was a 1s exposure aimed at the core of the comet. The image is 235x235 arcseconds in size.
The second exposure is a minute long, and it's aimed at the tail (the center of the field is offset by 10 arcminutes). We tried to track the comet, so the star show up as strips on the image (they with relative to the comet). This image is much larger, about 960x960 arcseconds in size (the whole view area of the chip). Images are blue, indicating that the exposures were made in the blue band. It does not mean that the comet itself is blue (we just measured the blue component).
Observers: Gy. P. Szokoly, A. J. Connolly
Primary Investigator: R. J. Brunner
Comet 1996 B2 Hyakutake Home Page