Night Light of the North Coast: Comet Hyakutake

“Facing the Unknown”
Comet Hyakutake glowing with its distinctive greenish hue, as photographed from Fickle Hill Road above Arcata, California. Shot on Ektar 1000 color negative film, this is an in-camera double-exposure: first I photographed Comet Hyakutake. Then, on the same piece of film, I took another photo of my friend’s face in the dark, painting blue light only onto his profile with a tiny flashlight. Can you see his profile looking down toward the left? That is no “Horseshoe Nebula;” it’s his nostril! Above his nostril is the ridge of his eyebrow, and below the nostril are his lips, and at the bottom, his chin. Or maybe you had to be there. Anyway, it was all very cosmic. Humboldt County, California. March, 1996.

Gradually, particle by particle, it grew in size. Through the eons its body filled out, increasing mass infinitesimally with each random mote and flake that settled onto its surface.

In its youth it had prowled the blackness of space on the shadowy fringes of a huge vortex. With others of its kind, it had drifted lazily at a safe distance from the swirling chaos of the maelstrom, observing aloofly the orbits and eddies of ices, metals, rocks and gases in their mad circuits about the new, bright little star at the center.

Masses moving by in the unceasing night caressed it with soft tendrils of gravity, tugging and pulling at it gently, continually altering its wanderings until at last it was coaxed into a lazy path downward toward the star at the center of the busy swirl. Eventually the sun’s own gravitational influence embraced it tenderly and drew it in.

Perhaps never again would it know the relative peace of its birthplace. It had begun a new orbit, a new cycle that would plunge it inward through the busy minefield of giant planets and debris, toward the sun, around it, and back outward again. Over and over again it would repeat this cyclical, 17,000-year long trek down to the star and back out. During this endless journey it would be subjected not only to the tortures of the sun’s searing radiation at its closest approach, but to the immense gravitational pulls of the moving planets and the star about which they orbited. Its path would be influenced by the gravity of every body it passed.

Now the comet plunged toward the sun again, the star’s radiation bombarding its crust and boiling away the softer areas across its revolving surface. Pockets of volatile gases burst forth continually under the bombardment, sending streamers and jets outward until the comet’s nucleus was immersed in a fuzzy cloud of its own sloughed materials. Its course was altered ever so slightly with each jet erupting from its surface, with each chunk blasted free. Its long tail took shape as it swung down closer to the sun, the solar wind pushing dust and gas particles away from it and outward from the sun in a long glowing trail.

It passed close to the third planet, closer than it ever had before. It was no stranger to this part of the neighborhood, for the comet had passed that big blue marble many times since it was first dislodged from its old home outside the solar system. The last time it had swung by Earth some 17,000 years before, humanity had comprised a scant few millions of souls. The peopling of the Americas had only recently begun with early migrations from Asia. People had set down their stone tools and gazed in wonder with their naked eyes, or perhaps hid in their caves in fear.

Now as Comet Hyakutake approached our planet again, Earth’s billions of inhabitants trained on it the latest technological instruments and lenses that the science of the late Twentieth Century had to offer. Yet advanced as we thought ourselves to be, this spectacular comet had come out of nowhere. We had failed to even notice it until it was fewer than three months from its peak visibility; it was discovered in January of 1996, and peaked by late March. And none of us will ever see that comet again.

I’m ready for another good comet.

Note: I’m not a scientist, and where informed scientific theory failed me — or rather where I failed science — I substituted with good old-fashioned creative license. We can call it science fiction. I hope you enjoyed the ride.

“Release”
This Hyakutake fan art I made from my photo of the comet combined with other photographs of various places and objects I found on California’s North Coast. While I shot the original comet on 35mm film, I photographed the rest of the parts digitally some years later. Created September, 2008.

To read previous entries of “Night Light of the North Coast,” click on my name above the article. To keep abreast of my most current photography or peer into its past, visit and contact me at my website mindscapefx.com or follow me on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx.

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Willie Caos-mayham
Guest
4 years ago

🕯🌳Good morning David really good one. Thank you and Kym for sharing. Hope this sticks. ☄🗿🛸

Willie Caos-mayham
Guest
4 years ago

🕯🌳The year my daughter was born. 👍🏽🖖☄

toni ross
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toni ross
4 years ago

I saw a comet, same color streaking across the sky early Wed. night 2/12/20 in Miranda. Anyone else see it?

Ullr Rover
Guest
4 years ago
Reply to  toni ross

Relative to our point of observation a comet moves pretty slowly, taking months to traverse the sky. It is a dirty snowball following an extreme orbit from our outer solar system and “melting” as it gets close to our sun. A meteor, bolide or “shooting star” is debris entering the Earth’s atmosphere and traverses the sky very quickly… in seconds or less.

No, I didn’t see it.

And, cool picts, Mr. Wilson.

ISAW
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ISAW
4 years ago
Reply to  toni ross

I saw it!!! It ran across Venus.
twas a meteor.

sandra
Guest
4 years ago

I also witnessed that comet in march of 96 and it will be a sight I shall never forget. I watched it cross the meadow in ettersburg for a few nights. I would get up and marvel at the incredible beauty and light that it emitted as it moved across the sky each night….. I was always surprised that more people didn’t talk about it. It was incredibly close and quite clear with it’s long tail. Quite an incredible experience!!!!!!

Dot
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Dot
4 years ago

I long for another good comet. Hyakutake was wonderful, but my dream is for another with the longevity and intensity of Hale-Bopp. I was sooooo sad when it finally left our skies. It graced our view every clear night and we made a point to go put and see it.
Wonderful photos. Thank you for sharing.

Lost Croat Outburst
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Lost Croat Outburst
4 years ago

Wow, back in the day, this Wilson Entity would have been a great acid guide. 200 micrograms of the finest windowpane in this Quadrant and off you go. Fly your astral plane, but not like the mail plane and bold young pilot of recent infamy.

Very cool pics and I missed the comet.