Welcome to the Comet Hyakutake page for the Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph Experiment (LASCO). The LASCO experiment was launched on the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft. SOHO was launched on 2 December 1995 at 0808 UT (0308 EST) from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Minimum Elongation is approx 5.2 degrees and occurs on May 3, 1996
The comet will be in the C3 field of view until May 6, 1996.
4 Panel view of comet (Blue filter) - Color Gif 180k bytes
Comet Movie (Blue filter) - Color Gif 765k bytes
On May 1, 1996 there was a coronal mass ejection (CME) seen by the LASCO C3 coronagraph while the Comet Hyakutake was also in the field of view. This provided a spectacular picture of a comet and an explosive solar event in which matter streams out from the sun at hundreds of kilometers per second in a single image. This image was created by subtracting an image prior to the CME from one during the CME. This has the effect of emphasizing the changes in the corona.
Comet and CME - Color Gif 477k bytes
Comet and CME - B&W Gif 477k bytes
This is a large animated GIF file showing the comet's motion over six days, April 30 - May 5, 1996
Here are two color MPEG movies showing the Comet and the Coronal Mass Ejection. They are identical versions in large and small editions.
Comet and CME Movie - Color MPEG 1745k
Comet and CME Movie - Color MPEG 394k
Hint: Use a MPEG or GIF viewer to view movies and images. Web browsers such as Mosaic or Netscape often reserve lots of colors for themselves and leave few for use by other applications.
<=== Comet Close-Up:
White Light Image taken on 2 May 1996
Comet Close-Up :
White Light Image near min. elongation - 3 May 1996. ====>
Images on this page may be published freely provided that credit is given to the four principal institutions listed on the LASCO Home Page.
wang@ares.nrl.navy.mil
NRL Naval Research Laboratory
Solar Physics Branch / Code 7660