Once he had established that the object was moving relative to the background stars, he emailed the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, the clearing house for astronomical discoveries. Hale first established that there was no other deep-sky object near M70, and then consulted a directory of known comets, finding that none were known to be in this area of the sky. The comet had an apparent magnitude of 10.5 and lay near the globular cluster M70 in the constellation of Sagittarius. Hale had spent many hundreds of hours searching for comets without success, and was tracking known comets from his driveway in New Mexico when he chanced upon Hale–Bopp just after midnight. The comet was discovered independently on July 23, 1995, by two observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, both in the United States. Accordingly, Hale–Bopp was dubbed the great comet of 1997. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the Great Comet of 1811, the previous record holder. It is difficult to predict the maximum brightness of new comets with any degree of certainty, but Hale–Bopp met and exceeded most predictions when it passed perihelion on April 1, 1997, reaching about magnitude −1.8. Comet Hale–Bopp, shortly after passing perihelion in April 1997Ĭomet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades.Īlan Hale and Thomas Bopp discovered Comet Hale–Bopp separately on July 23, 1995, before it became visible to the naked eye.
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