This photograph was taken as the comet made its closest approach to Polaris (the North Star). Polaris is the bright star in the upper right corner of the photograph. We photographed from a site near Comet Peak (close to Florence Junction, Arizona) on March 27, 1996, 2:00 a.m. MST. We used Rick's Olympus OM-3 camera with a Zuiko (Olympus) 180mm f/2.8 lens. The exposure was 4 minutes at f/2 using a star tracking motor drive. The film was Fuji Provia 1600 35mm Professional slide film processed for ISO 1600. We then scanned the image with a Nikon Coolscan LS-10 and used Adobe Photoshop to apply mild color correction, but no sharpening. Photograph by Rick Scott and Joe Orman.
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Updated: 3 October 1998