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Old 30-01-2006, 10:28 PM
Greg Bryant
AS&T Editor

Greg Bryant is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Sydney
Posts: 352
Do I remember that discovery!

Shortly after Hyakutake's discovery, but before an orbit was first published, comet Hale-Bopp was recovered in the morning sky following solar conjunction. I rang Gordon Garradd that same morning to congratulate him on the recovery, only for him to give me the unpublished orbital predictions for Hyakutake. That was an eye-opener. I think it was the following day that the IAU circular came out with the first published orbit.

For those of us who had never seen a Great Comet (the last being West in 1976), we were blessed with what was arguably a once-in-a-millennium apparation.
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