Victor Rogus

January 2000 Total Lunar Eclipse

by Victor Rogus

January 20, 2000

The first winter storm, of a seemingly mild season, had struck the Midwest. It had deposited only about six inches of snow to cover the gray landscape in a blanket of crisp white. But the storm brought with it a burst of polar air that would send the air temperatures in North - East Wisconsin into the –10 to –15 degree below zero categories. Including a wind chill off of Lake Michigan dropped the mercury into the –34 degree zone. These are the conditions I would have to endure in my attempt to capture the totally eclipsed Moon on film.

Today is Thursday and I was needed at work, but with a fresh batch of vacation days under my belt my intention was to set out to my dark sky site in Algoma, Wisconsin, photograph the eclipse and then take Friday off as a holiday. My Jeep was loaded with everything I needed to create a multiple piece composite image of the Moon’s complete umbral display as well as the moment of totality. I would also attempt a wide-angle piggyback shot of the eclipsed Moon against its heavenly background of winter stars. This would be my first astro photo outing of the New Year and the new millennium; I hopped for a memorable night and a fine photograph or two.

This was going to be a very cold night but the sky was predicted to be clear. This event will be visible over most of the United States. Many fine photographers will try to capture it. With this cold spell we are experiencing many will be tempted to set up telescopes in the backyard and run out at the moment just before totality and snap off a roll of film. Because it is a work night many more may not try at all, even if their skies are clear. In the last couple of days I had been trying to conceive a plan for creating a photographic image that is somehow different from the rest, this gives one a definite advantage in the strength of their portfolio. This is why I chose to drive the 200 miles of slippery roads to the dark skies of Algoma, Wisconsin. This is why I chose to endure the inhuman cold and biting wind of that icy shore.

Although I managed to leave work an hour early I did not arrive at my destination until after dark. Guiding the Jeep through the snowdrifts I found the place where I would make my stand. The drive had taken over five hours and I was tired already. Partly cloudy skies greeted me as exited my car. Instantly the cold night air bit the exposed skin on my face and hands and for the first time I felt a sting of doubt. Back in the Jeep I called my wife to let her know I had arrived safely. “I’m not sure I can even do this.” I said. “It’s so cold and there are clouds here!” “Oh no!” She replied. “Come home, it’s clear here.” There was no way, as the umbral phase of the eclipse begins at 9:01 P.M. local time and there was just no time for a change of plans. I had made my bed, now it was time to sleep in it.

Wisconsin Weather Radio was predicting clear (and very cold) skies except for extreme Northwest Wisconsin along Lake Superior where partly cloudy skies would prevail. The bright full Moon played hide and seek behind the fast moving, but clearing clouds while I made plans to work in five-minute shifts to unload my Jeep and set up the equipment. It was currently ten degrees below zero and the temperature was still dropping. First changing into my cold weather clothes, then steadily working and warming myself in the Jeep I began to make progress. My telescope was assembled and my gear was organized. It was now about 7:00 o’clock I would relax for an hour and then polar align the telescope mount at 8:00 o’clock.

The Moon was climbing higher and I could no longer see it through my windshield. My wristwatch hung over the rear view mirror ready to time segments between exposures and I felt as ready as I could be. With a little time to kill I placed a call to my teacher, friend, Mark who was at the time teaching a class. Leaving a message on his answering machine, I told him what he was missing and how cold it was. “It’s like Hell on ice.” I said.

9:00 o’clock, I begin to make my first battery of exposures, it is nearly impossible to touch the metal parts of the telescope with bare hands. Because of the strong wind gusts I have set my tripod low to the ground and already realize that I will be crawling on the snow just to look through the camera back. Now the eclipse has begun and I continue making exposures every ten minutes right on schedule. The dark shadow of the Earth swiftly shrouds crater after crater. Totality is predicted to be at 10:44 P.M. CST and I feel as comfortable as possible as I proceed towards that milestone.

The Jeep continually idols with the heater on high as I attend to the business of bracketing photographs through the five-inch refractor at ten minute intervals. Then without warning, with about ten minutes before lunar totality the camera at the prime focus setting of the telescope refused to work. It is frozen and the shutter will not operate. Thinking it must be broken I remove the camera from the wide-angle “piggyback” station and reassign it to prime focus duty. It works well for the next battery of photographs and then it too fails to function. With my two frozen cameras in hand I re-enter the warm Jeep to recompose myself and try to get at least one camera working again. My fingers are numb as I manipulate the camera bodies in an attempt to warm them enough to finish the job. Suddenly one of them springs to life and I am out the door reattaching it to the focuser of the telescope. Looking up to gauge the progress of the eclipsing Moon I see a very bright meteor seem to pass right underneath the reddening lunar face. The sky is now quite dark with the exception of millions of stars filtering into view with very little Moonlight to overpower their presence. When I had first arrived although the Sun had set, the bright Moon light on the snow made it easy to see. But now with the Moon in nearly full eclipse it was nearly as dark as a night of a new Moon.

This may be hard to believe but the next thing to happen was, as I was reaching for the camera body it dropped right out of the telescope’s focuser into my hand. The small screws in the “T”- ring adapter had loosened and the adapter fell apart. Back in the Jeep a pocketknife served as a screwdriver to repair the unit with about two minutes remaining before totality. By now I was low on film and decided to reload for the moment of totality. As I carefully rewound the exposed film inside the camera at times I could feel it tearing and cracking. It was so cold that the film was actually beginning to freeze and crack inside the cameras! The leaders on the film rolls would actually snap off as they went from being tightly wound around the take up spool to a flattened position. Despite this difficulty no images were lost and only minimal damage to the exposed film was sustained.

The cold night dragged on and the Moon steadily brightened the landscape as it slipped from behind the Earth’s shadow. When the event was over and the Moon was again full I hurried back into my Jeep where I remained warming myself for about twenty minutes. Then, deciding that there was no more reason for me to stay, I began working again in five-minute shifts disassembling my equipment and repackaging it for the long ride home. Hopefully I would have gathered enough images to create a composite photograph that would tell the entire story of the first total lunar eclipse over North America of the new century.

94% Solar Eclipseby Victor Rogus 

May 10, 1994

A perfect, perfect day for solar astronomy! It would seem that my prayers have been answered! Last night's clouds cleared out by 2:00 A.M. giving me the time I needed to polar align my telescope's mount before the rising of the Sun. While rainfalls to the West and more rain and clouds obscure the Eastern sky, a huge, lazy dome of high pressure rests squarely atop the central United States. Today is of special interest to the astronomical community and the timing of this clear Spring day seems heaven sent. This afternoon, at 12:04 P.M. the Sun will be darkened by a near total eclipse. Farther down state, some observers will enjoy a perfect annular eclipse event, highlighted by a concentric ring of light around the dark lunar disk. Due to the apparent size of the Moon, at this time, the solar face will not be completely covered making this a partial eclipse any way you look at it. My backyard is located at the extreme northern edge, of the limit of annularity. This condition though not conducive to a perfectly centered lunar disk upon the solar face, will provide a better chance for me to see and photograph the famous Baily's beads phenomenon. (Baily's beads are bright areas of sunlight that sometimes appear momentarily around the edge of the Lunar disk shortly before and after a Solar eclipse. The beads of light are caused by Sunlight pouring through the lunar valleys near the limb or edge of the circumference of the Moon. They are named after the 18th century British astronomer, Francis Baily.) This fact has influenced my decision to stay here on the chance of experiencing the rare event of Baily's beads. Also many friends and neighbors have asked me about this well advertised eclipse, I have decided to share this grand adventure with them. My wife and I have thought to make something of a "day star" party for anyone who is interested in joining us. We will provide aluminum coated milar solar filter glasses and views through a filtered telescope throughout the entire solar spectacle. This is a fine opportunity to educate the public about astronomy in general and the uphill battle we astronomers wage against the effects of light pollution. This is an obligation that every amateur and professional astronomer must be willing to embrace. If we are to preserve the majesty the night sky holds for ourselves and for the generations to follow. I also want someone to monitor the drop in the air temperature, and other subtle environmental changes at the moment of totality. I will be busy at the camera throughout the entire event, as I have decided to try to document the entire eclipse event from start to finish. The entire eclipse is predicted to last three to three and one half-hours. If I make a series of bracketed exposures (based upon my exposure tests from previous Solar photography outings) every ten minutes. The best exposure of each set can then be combined with the others into one composite image that will show the Moon’s progressive path across the Solar face. I should end up with between eighteen and twenty-one exposures that should provide a fair representation of the entire event. This may give me an advantage over other astrophotographers who plan only to make photos during the moment of maximum eclipse.

People begin to arrive, making themselves at home in lawn chairs. It is warm, (nearly 70 degrees F.), clear and comfortable. One can feel the excitement in the air as curious friends gather on this Tuesday morning in hopes of seeing a truly awe inspiring sight. Being a Tuesday, bosses and job obligations had to be dealt with. This is something any budding astronomer should be aware of. The workings of the cosmic clock wait for no man and we are little more than spectators in the great Coliseum of the universe. Either you are there for the show or you are not. I have set up a video camera on a tripod to make a record of our party as watching the peoples’ reactions to the solar eclipse is often nearly as much fun as the eclipse itself. The television tells of how more than a thousand people have converged upon the Adler planetarium in Chicago. It also tells of how cameras across the country are recording this event.

The time is now 10:24 A.M. and the Sun begins to lose its familiar round shape. This is the first indicator that the eclipse has begun. Chinese legend tells of how a great evil dragon that lives in the sky is sometimes prone to try to eat the Sun. When the dragon does this, the Sun's great heat causes indigestion and the dragon must spit it out. This happens every time and that is lucky for us. Another interesting side note is that while we are watching this eclipse, one of Illinois most notorious mass murderers, John Wayne Gacy, is being put to death. Though I generally do not believe in capitol punishment I suppose this is also lucky for us, as he killed people from my home town: another dragon slain!

11:40 A.M., Three quarters of the Sun is hidden from our view. Milar glasses are passed from hand to hand and it begins to feel cooler. Between exposures my guests take their turn at the eyepiece of my filtered finder scope and sneak a peak through my camera back. Wow! Amazing! My guests do not seem to be disappointed and there is no reason they should be. The eclipse is beautiful and dramatic. Some people even brought their cats. One lady brought two and another brought one. We too have cats and so the yard was full of them. This enhanced the already surreal atmosphere and we were able to see the animals’ reactions to the darkening of the Sun. (They did not seem to take notice.)

11:58 A.M., My wife shouts out, "Look at the shadows under the trees." Indeed the leaves in the trees were transformed into thousands of pinhole cameras displaying countless images of the crescent Sun upon the ground and the sidewalk. "Try to get a photo and check the air temperature." I reply, for I do not have the time now and must reload for the next battery of solar photos. Indeed the air temperature had dropped a full 10 degrees F. since we had started this adventure and the chirping birds of Spring are beginning to quiet themselves as though for the evening.

12:04 P.M. The moment of maximum eclipse is upon us and I can almost feel the camera shutters around the country clicking away. Mine is no exception. Making extra exposures for "insurance" I feel confident the eclipsed Sun has been captured in my film cans. As I turn the telescope over to the observers I think how I am only half way through with my project and I must do my best to record the Moon’s departure from the solar disk. No Baily's beads, only three sunspots too small to be recorded at prime focus, but overall breath taking all the same. Now that my guests have had their fill of solar science they begin to gather up their feline friends, thank me and bid farewell. Now that I am alone I can concentrate on finishing my task. Staying with my camera and telescope I am bewildered by the idea that I am witnessing a celestial act that will not be played out over the Chicagoland area in this magnitude until the year 2099.

The Chinese sky dragon has again lost his appetite for this solar banquet and the familiar face of old Sol is returned to us. I bask in its glory and give thanks for the clear weather. My weather radio is now predicting increasing clouds and a 30% chance for thunderstorms by tomorrow morning and indeed it did rain. With all the excitement I did not notice the exact moment the eclipse ended. I promise myself that I will be more careful with record keeping next time. Now I am off to have my film developed.

May 11,1994 - With my film developed and my photos before me, I begin to paste up my best images onto a large art board. Arranging them into four rows of five photos each I stand back to admire my work. The whole story of the May 10, 1994 94% partial solar eclipse is told here through my photographs and I am pleased. Now it is my intention to have the art board re-photographed on a copystand with a 4x5 large format camera. From that 4x5 negative the final print will be made. To drop out the false color blue of the Sun, created by the solar filter, I have decided to make the final print a black and white version. Upon seeing this final black and white version I Knew I had a very good image.

I was very anxious to submit it to my favorite publication "Astronomy" magazine. However, knowing that the competition was going to be extraordinarily tough concerning this event facetiously I wrote:

Dear Sirs,

Please find enclosed my submission of the May 10, 1994 partial solar eclipse. Please add it to the heap you are sure to receive for consideration for publication.

Thank you,

Victor C. Rogus

As the weeks passed I heard somewhere that Astronomy magazine received more submissions from this event than from any other event in its history. The "heap" was huge and it was growing. Then one day in September I received The October issue of Astronomy magazine and in it was a feature article called: "Golden Eclipse Memories" and there was my composite photograph! It would seem my plan had worked. I had beaten the odds. My work had been published again!

Occultation of the Planet Saturn by Victor Rogus 

September 18, 1997

Tonight a special effort must be made to try and document the occultation of the planet: Saturn. This event is a rather rare one, one that I have looked forward to with great anticipation. Saturn’s disappearance behind the lunar disk is an event that occurs once in an approximately an eighteen-year cycle. It can be seen from somewhere on the Earth once or twice in a year then not again for about eighteen years. Over the years I had seen pictures in books depicting this event and admired them greatly. Tonight I would have a chance to add a similar photograph to my own portfolio.

Of course, as luck would have it, tonight is a work night and we are very busy at the shop. My absence would be sorely felt and my conscience would not allow my fellow workers to carry my burden. This is one of the downfalls of working in a business owned by your own family. This work issue is a problem faced by many amateur astronomers and one that should be considered before investing a lot of money in pursuit of this hobby. After all a hobby is supposed to be relaxing. Actually I resist using the word “hobby” to describe this activity as it is truly much more than a way to pass the time. It is a way of life and when it is lived to its fullest extreme, an art form, the kind that requires sacrifice, hard work and devotion. Sometimes going into work bone tired is just a part of it.

Tonight’s occultation is to occur at 5:56 A.M. (I am supposed to be at work at 6:00 A.M.) Fortunately the planet: Saturn is quite bright (magnitude: 0.2 at this time) and the Moon is only one day past the full phase, so a trip to the dark countryside will not be necessary for photography of this event. What will be needed is an open Western horizon and of course clear skies. The weather looks promising as a high-pressure system has a firm hold on the central states. Considering my options for a Western horizon free of obstruction I realize my brother’s backyard is a good candidate. A brief inspection of his premises on the previous night confirms my opinion. His backyard adjoins a school’s sports field and offers a fair view to the West. He lives in Wheeling, Illinois only a few miles from my home and it is close to our job as we work together. If I set up my equipment in his yard or on the sports field I could photograph the occultation, disassemble everything and be at work no more than an hour late. (My conscience could live with that.) I tell him I will be at his house at around 2:30 A.M. to select the perfect spot and to erect my telescope and to polar align its mount. Planetary imaging can be a tricky business and there will be little time to capture Saturn and the Moon in close conjunction. With the nearly full Moon’s overpowering brightness in the field, the exposure time estimate will be critical. My intention is to photograph through my five-inch apochromatic refractor at 114x power using the eyepiece projection method. My choice of film for this event is fine grain 100-asa Kodak Ektachrome slide film.

2:30 A.M. sharp I arrive at my brother’s house. Like the good host, he is awake with coffee brewing and even has his own telescope set up in anticipation of the event that is to come. The neighbor’s dog, Sterling, barks constantly as I ready my equipment in the cool, autumn air. The landscape is awash in glowing Moonlight as Luna and Saturn pair off in the heavens above. We drink coffee and track the beautiful ringed planet as its apparent distance from the Moon ever decreases as they creep across the dark sky. Sterling never grows weary of warning the neighborhood of the astronomers at work in their study of this celestial ballet.

In the few minutes proceeding the moment when the Moon overtakes the great ringed planet, temporarily hiding it from view, I furiously make exposures bracketing them widely. Now the celestial pair is in very close conjunction and through our stinging eyes we marvel at the amazingly beautiful sight visible in our telescope eyepieces and through my camera back. The alarm on my wristwatch sounds one minute until occultation. The glare of Moonlight begins to erode the saturnine image and then the planet is gone hidden from our view obscured by the lunar surface. From our latitude Saturn would not reappear until 6:29 A.M. It would be light and the objects of our desire would be, by then, hidden in the branches of the trees. One last gulp of cold coffee and we began to carefully disassemble our equipment my brother stashed his in his garage and I loaded mine in my truck. For us the event was history and we drove off to work. A couple of days later the custom lab that does my slide processing returned my images to me and I was pleased to find that the four-second exposure time yielded fine results although the Moon was, by necessity, a bit overexposed. Overall though, not bad for a work night, thought I.

Comet Hyakutake by Victor Rogus March 21, 1996 This is truly a surprise blessing from the heavens! This is the sort of event that may happen only once or twice in an astronomer’s lifetime! A truly bright comet, a comet with a long graceful tail and bright coma has emerged from the icy depths of space. This is what astronomers call a “thirty year comet” for obvious reasons. Its very long, slow elliptical orbit has brought it very close to the Earth (a snowball’s throw in astronomical terms: of only about nine million miles), surprising and exciting us all with its beauty and majesty! This comet is called: Hyakutake (1996 B 2). It is the amazing discovery of amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake. He has become to me an inspiration; the very idea of discovering a new comet for the world strikes me as a very noble and unselfish pursuit. This idea reminds me of an old Joseph De Stafano’s “Outer Limits” episode, one I have watched many, many times called “The Galaxy Being” It stars Cliff Robertson as a radio astronomer whose wife does not really understand his passion for trying to contact other life forms in the universe. When he tries to explain this love for science adventure and discovery to her, she asks him, “Who are you to discover anything?” He replies. “Nobody, nobody at all but the secrets of the universe don’t mind. They reveal themselves to nobody’s who care.”

Comet Hyakutake is a surprise to all of us who watch the skies. We all had been anticipating the arrival of comet: Hale-Bopp (formerly C/1995 01) that had been discovered independently by amateur astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp on July 23,1995. Astronomers around the world cautiously began heralding it as the greatest comet of the next twenty-five years, if not the century. This comet would not be at its predicted peak until March of 1996, a full year away. We all had great hopes and waited patiently. No one would have guessed a comet of equal stature was waiting in the wings to try and upstage the mighty Comet: Hale-Bopp. No one would have guessed, but here it was!

The night before, I had made a quick sketch of the area of the sky that the mysterious comet Hyakutake was said to inhabit. It was to be found near the bright star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes. That would be easy enough to find. Even better this comet had become circumpolar in its northern trajectory and would be visible all night long. This being the case I would have all night to search for it if it was difficult to find.

The first thing I noticed was a cold, clear sky as I climbed out of my truck at my dark sky site in Algoma, Wisconsin. As usual, my legs ached from the long drive north. The air temperature was about 15 degrees above zero and would soon be colder. The air is dry and there is no wind, so other than the cold everything seems to be working in my favor. For this event I have set up my 5-camera tracking device using a variety of films and lenses, including one medium format 120 black and white camera. Now it is time for a little dinner of coffee and sandwiches inside the cab of the truck while I wait for darkness to fall. A little while passes and I begin to see the first evening stars shine through the windshield. In a moment I will be back outside in the night air ready for my first glimpse of comet: Hyakutake. Opening the door I leave my warm cocoon with my star map in hand. Gazing skyward I gasp, “My God!” The great comet blazed across the heavens in a blue-white light that matched the brightness of the nearby star, Arcturus, it displaying an ion tail that I can only estimate to be approximately 100 degrees in length! Laughing to myself I throw my “How to find comet: Hyakutake” star chart into my briefcase. No, I won’t need this tonight. This new comet is the most conspicuous object in the sky, and it was impossible to miss! Sharp with crisp detail it actually feels near by and it is not difficult to imagine it actually passing the Earth. The coma surrounding the nucleus appeared a bit fuzzy but the tail was full of detailed striations I prayed would record well on film. Shaking with excitement I felt like the old fisherman who has finally hooked “ the big one”. Now I just have to land this fish into the boat. Aiming my cameras I begin making my exposures, ignoring the cold night air and filled with indescribable awe I can not help feel a little sorry for those people who have not ventured outside on this chilly night to see this marvel in the darkness. In fact I know that I am really not alone, the eyes of the world’s astronomical community are with me, making every sort of study, measurement, and photograph within their power before comet: Hyakutake bids mankind farewell on its long, slow journey through the solar system.

Without stopping to rest, I work until the glow of the morning Sun begins to brighten the horizon over Lake Michigan, fading the comet’s glow. The majestic Sun has returned to its throne in the sky. Exhausted and cold I know there is nothing more I can do except carefully disassemble my equipment and head for home. Even now after spending many hours with this marvelous specter I am having a hard time believing what I had seen. My plan is to return to this frozen field as soon as conditions allow furthering my study of this ghostly vision. The following night is predicted to be mostly clear but I am too tired and cold to continue. I have made nearly one hundred and twenty exposures of comet: Hyakutake at this leg of its journey through the heavens and I feel that this would be enough for now.

When I return to make more exposures, my new set of photographs should reveal a dramatic change in the appearance of the comet and its location in the sky.

Comet Hale Bopp by Victor Rogus February 8, 1997 At long last my time has come to meet the comet called Hale-Bopp but it would take considerable effort in doing so. With the usual four-hour drive behind me I arrived at my dark sky site in Algoma, Wisconsin. There, just outside Algoma, an impenetrable wall of ice and snow that blocked the entrance to my family’s property greeted me. Even with my four-wheel drive pick up truck I dared not attempt to climb this huge, frozen mound. Having prepared for this type of problem I seized the aluminum snow shovel I had placed in the truck at the last minute and assaulted the icy barrier. In just a few moments I found this tool to be useless. I stood there trying to decide if I should try and carry everything in by hand via many long hikes back and forth and leave my truck abandoned on the busy highway. (This would also leave me with no shelter in the minus 2 degree temperatures.) Or should I try to find another place to set up the multiple camera trackers that I would be using tonight. Choosing the latter I started driving down the road back to a wayside rest area I had passed a couple of miles back. The parking area was open but the facilities such as the wash rooms were locked. It was almost sunset and I thought it best not to set anything up until I saw if any outdoor lighting was going to be turned on or if someone would come around in the evening to lock the parking area. A small sign stated NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING and CLOSED AT SUNSET. Also, worse yet, a layer of thick clouds hung low in the sky ever since I left my home five hours ago and they showed no sign of lifting. On this trip I made my very first cellular telephone call and learned from my father who could see the Weather Channel radar image that clear skies were just to my West and I should keep waiting for them to arrive. Encouraged by this news I began to set up my cameras and their mounts. A stiff wind blew in off Lake Michigan and very large waves pounded the frozen shore as slowly the sky indeed, began to clear.

Comet: Hale-Bopp was due to rise in the East around 3:30 A.M. Central Standard Time. I had hours to kill before then so I sat in the truck and tried to keep warm. Behind me cars sped by with headlights glaring so I improvised light shields using a card table and the truck itself. A particularly harsh light from a public restroom provided an all night irritation. Twice during the night local police wanting to see what I was up to stopped to talk to me. After my explanation they reminded me that the rest area was actually closed but since I had good reason to be there I could stay. A nice young couple also stopped in to see if I was having car trouble and if they could be of some help. I told everyone I met that night about comet: Hale-Bopp and how in about a month or so it would be big news. I said they would see stories about it on the evening news and in the papers. Everyone I spoke to had never heard of this comet or knew it was coming to these skies.

As the night wears on I find myself frozen and tired but now it is close to 3:00 A.M. Soon I must start searching the now clear skies for the fuzzy star that was the Hale-Bopp comet. An empty hour passes then I see it! My energy is renewed until suddenly I realize the beautiful comet resting in the Milky Way star clouds is heading directly into the limbs of a tree where it would surely remain until sunrise. There was a small axe behind the seat of the pickup and the tree was only about six inches in diameter at the base but it was obviously planted to beautify the rest area and was probably protected by law. There was nothing I could do but move all the frozen equipment, and light shields a few feet to the South and re-polar align the mount, de-ice the cameras and re-do the entire set up. Cold and aching I set about my work with comet: Hale-Bopp climbing high, beckoning me to take its picture. In my haste to move the complex camera tracker I lost my flashlight and my power cord became hopelessly tangled on something under or near the truck. I could not see without my flashlight and turning on the truck headlights did not help. I began feeling myself lose control of the situation. In fact it seemed the more I tried to make things work the worse things got. Then I remembered a flashlight my Mom had given me. She had bought some at a garage sale and had given me one for a spare. It was somewhere in the truck. Slowly rummaging through my boxes of lenses and adapters my frozen fingers joyfully found the garage sale flashlight. A numb digit pressed the icy switch and there was light and it was good!

Now all problems were easily solved and I started to make my exposures. My neck ached and my head began to hurt from fatigue and the glare of the irritating street lamp near the public washroom that catches my eye every time I step from behind my card table light shield. The cold here is so bitter I truly feel as though I can not go on. I feel sick from the cold and fatigue. Forcing myself to keep working is necessary as dawn is only a short two hours away and I want to make as many exposures as I can. Very soon I can take it all down and drive home! When the dawn’s early light came I carefully packed my gear, stripped off my snow-covered coveralls, shoes, shirt and coat and for a moment stood there almost naked in the cold morning air before climbing into a sweat suit that had been warmed by the truck’s defroster. Pausing just long enough to snap a picture of the lakefront, I head for home happy to have met comet: Hale-Bopp. I was also glad this star trip is over. From the midnight hour until dawn I saw twelve meteors trails under very clear skies. They were beautiful and I felt that maybe they were just for me because I was sure no one else was out in this cold to see them. Until now this was the most difficult astronomy outing I had ever experienced. It took me two days in bed to recover, and I felt chilled all week long.

It was hard to tell my wife that I was going back in just a couple of weeks to document comet: Hale-Bopp’s progress and to try and capture its image near peak brilliancy. “No! You’re not going. This is enough. Besides, you’ve got its picture already,” She said. She said it and she meant it, but she was wrong and I was going to meet with this wonderful comet again this time to photograph it in all its glory!