Observations of Comet Hale-Bopp
SOLSTICE made numerous observations of Comet Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997. A series of observations were executed on the dates of March 14-16, 1997, with more in the month of April.
The comet spectrum above has only had initial processing applied, so additional small wavelength shifts and background subtraction still need to be corrected. The SOLSTICE 3 channels overlap near 180 and 300 nm. The cometary OH and O emissions, primarily from the dissociation of H2O, and the C emissions, from the dissociation of CO, CO2, and dust, are the brighter emission features seen in this spectrum. The bright emission at 121.6 nm is mostly the geocoronal H I Lyman-α airglow, although some of this emission is also from the comet.