The comet Tabur, imaged 10/13/96. The stars are streaks
because the eight 60 second exposures were combined
to track the fast moving comet. Note the triangular shape.
The large comet Hale Bopp is coming! Imaged 9/30/96, 120" exposure.
Comet deVico: Imaged 9/27/95.
About 1/2 degree of the comet's tail is shown in this mosaic.
Comet Bradfield: Imaged about 10/1/95.
Comets DeVico and Bradfield were both
visable in the morning sky only about 5-10 degrees apart in the fall of 95.
Note the different tail directions!!! Both these last two pictures were
taken just before sunrise looking east. Thus, the Sun is about to rise below
both pictures. In almost all cases, a comet's tail points away from the Sun
blown out by the solar wind. Thus deVico's tail is normal. However, in rare
cases dust around the comet's orbit leads to a Sun pointing 'antitail'.
This occurs when the Earth happens to pass through the plane of the comet's
orbit.