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LIGHT IN THE SKY
MARCH 28, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports with an update on comet Hyakutake.
JEFFREY KAYE: Star gazers around the world this week have been watching a prime time celestial show. Amateur and professional astronomers have been treated to the brightest comet to pass by Earth in 20 years. With its bright head and streaming tail, comet Hyakutake has been a tantalizingly photogenic spectacle.
RONALD BAALKE, Computer Engineer: This was taken almost a week ago, and it's a very impressive image because it shows the long tail that the comet has.
JEFFREY KAYE: Los Angeles computer engineer Ronald Baalke has been assembling a global photo album of the comet.
RONALD BAALKE: This was by David Lane in Nova Scotia, Canada.
JEFFREY KAYE: People around the world send him images electronically, and he makes them available to anyone with access to the Internet. One photographer, Peter Barvogts in Adirondacks, New York, used an unconventional technique but it worked.
RONALD BAALKE: Normally you put your camera on the telescope to track a comet, but he used his barn door as a tracking device.
JEFFREY KAYE: His barn door?
RONALD BAALKE: Yes. He put the camera on the barn door and--
JEFFREY KAYE: You're right. He has a little description here--
RONALD BAALKE: Yes.
JEFFREY KAYE: --that says, guided on a single barn door for three minutes.
RONALD BAALKE: Right.
JEFFREY KAYE: That's right.
RONALD BAALKE: I guess he didn't have a telescope, so he kind of innovated.
JEFFREY KAYE: Amateurs and professionals from approximately 20 countries have sent in images. In Japan, comet Hyakutake is being watched with special interest by Yuji Hyakutake, the amateur astronomer who first spotted it three months ago.
YUJI HYAKUTAKE, Amateur Astronomer: (speaking through interpreter) For an observer like myself, it is a great joy that people would understand what comets are somehow and be able to see them.
JEFFREY KAYE: Some have better views than others. U.S. and Russian astronauts were dazzled by their closer encounter with the orbiting ice glob.
ASTRONAUT: Yeah, Dave, we got a good fix on the comet Hyakutake right now, and it is absolutely beautiful. The tail is absolutely long. It looks like it goes to the end of the universe.
JEFFREY KAYE: In another part of space, the Hubble Telescope took pictures which scientists say show natural geysers erupting through holes on the comet's surface. Back on Earth, the comet could be seen as a fuzzy spot with the naked eye. Binoculars and telescopes enhanced the image. The Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles declared an outbreak of comet fever, even though some visitors seemed more taken by the lights of the city than nature's light show.
SPOKESMAN: Just look at the fuzzy ball around it, the coma. Now look off at 10 o'clock from that and you'll see a very faint streak of light.
JEFFREY KAYE: The more knowledgeable astronomers helped out novice, while professionals offered impromptu lessons.
BRETT WILLIAMS, Griffith Observatory: The tail is about 10 million miles long. If you get out in the desert, you'll see the tail about 30 degrees or about 60 times longer than the Moon is wide.
SPOKESMAN: Chris, will you go around and look through the six-inch telescope right there.
JEFFREY KAYE: They sky also became a classroom for school kids from the Apple Valley Middle School. Teacher Anthony Heinsman brought them to a private observatory in the mountains 8,000 feet up. Away from city lights, they could get a clearer view of the comet.
SPOKESMAN: We're just about directly North right now, looking at Polaris, which is, which is in which constellation? Who knows that?
JEFFREY KAYE: But for some, the comet was much more than a mere science lessons. Pagans at the Star City Sanctuary in Los Angeles say the comet's arrival at the onset of Spring has spiritual significance.
MARILYNN, High Priestess: So now we have celebrated that we are getting more light. We are back into the light and back into life. The world wakes up from its long sleep. The comet comes in as an addition and saying, yes, there is now more light as it travels across.
JEFFREY KAYE: The comet is now fading from view as it flies off at the speed of about 200,000 miles an hour, but it should be more visible again in mid-April as it nears the Sun. After that, those who missed it this time around won't have another chance to see it for another 18,000 years.
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