Comet C/1996 B2 Hyakutake on 03-20-96
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This picture of the comet Hyakutake was taken on march 20 between 2:14 and
2:44 GMT at a dark observing site in the field near to Niederleis/Lower
Austria, about 50 km north of Vienna. The sky was completely clear and the
seeing excellent.

Shortly before I started the exposure the comet reached the meridian
(at 1:56), so that the conditions for photographing were optimal. The camera I
used was a YASHICA TL-electro (despite of the name nearly completely
mechanical), combined with a 205mm-telephoto lens. I mounted the camera on my
Meade 8" f/10 telescope and used a 10mm-eyepiece with illuminated crosshair
for guiding. That was easy because of the comet's bright starlike core. The
quick movement of Hyakutake in declination (12 arcmin per hour) was easily
observable, therefore the stars are represented as strokes in north-southern
direction on the photo.
The film I used was the for deep-sky-photography well-tried Fuji Super G Plus
400.

At the time of the exposure the comet was a 2.3 magnitudes bright object and
easily to be seen with the naked eye. The high-power binoculars I used (15x80)
showed the comet just like on the photo, only the tail was a bit shorter.
The field of the photograph measures about 6x4 degrees. The coma has a
diameter of 32 arcmin and the central tail is more than 3 degrees long. Above
and below of the main tail two shorter tails can be seen.
Also remarkable is the distinct green color of the coma.

So long, clear skies,
  Walter Koprolin