Comet Ikeya-Zhang and Andromeda galaxy are seen in night sky. Patrick Wiggins

By Joe Bauman
Deseret News staff writer
Friday, April 5, 2002

ROAD TO LAKEPOINT, Tooele County — The ghostly streak and blob in the northwestern sky Thursday night made one of the rarest sights in the heavens, a visually close encounter between a comet and a galaxy.

And they weren't just any comet and galaxy.

The display was a near conjunction in the sky of Comet Ikeya-Zhang, which is so bright that it is visible to the naked eye, and the great galaxy in Andromeda, an island universe close enough to our own Milky Way galaxy that on a dark night it too is visible to the unaided eye.

About 20 of Utah's amateur astronomers gathered on a remote spot in the desert west of the Great Salt Lake to witness the view. The site was on the road to the Lakepoint, Tooele County, five miles north of I-80 and 60 miles west of Salt Lake City.

Shortly after sundown Thursday, the first dim glow of the comet's head became visible to the northwest. As night deepened, the comet's long tail showed up.

Soon it and the Andromeda galaxy were both visible in even moderate telescopes and binoculars. Photographers began taking long-exposure views of the pair as their telescopes tracked them.

The comet has been sliding northward recently and Thursday night was the closest it will come to lining up with a big galaxy. The combination of celestial objects drew exclamations from some of Utah's most experienced sky-watchers.

"A great view of the comet," said Patrick Wiggins, member of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society and an official NASA "ambassador to the solar system."

"That's the first time personally I've ever seen a comet that close to a galaxy," Wiggins said.

He estimated the comet's tail at 4 or 5 degrees, nearly the length of a fist held with arm outstretched. "To be able to see Andromeda right down there by it, that was good."

Chuck Hards, who has written articles for Sky & Telescope Magazine about his techniques of building telescopes in a woodworking shop, said the fact that this was a naked-eye comet made it special. Most comets can only be detected by telescope.

"Scientists speculate that Comet Ikeya-Zhang is a return apparition of a comet last seen in the inner solar system in the year 1661, barely 40 years after the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving in the New World, and I got to see it with my own eyes," he said.

"That has got to be a mighty privilege by any standard."

He was impressed by the visual juxtaposition of comet and galaxy. Andromeda is more than 2 million light-years away, Hards noted.

"By that measure, the comet was practically in our own back yard." It is near the sun, having loped in from the distant reaches of the solar system in its long orbit.

Hards called the comet a beautiful, gossamer witness to the slow progress of humanity.

"I can't help but compare what I saw and photographed tonight to the image of a distant angel making its eternal rounds, checking on humanity to see what progress we've made in the last 340 years."

Astronomical society member Bruce Grimm said seeing a comet near a galaxy was a first for him. "It was definitely worth going out that far to see it, and getting a darker sky than being in close to the city," he said.

"Nice to get away from the light pollution," Wiggins commented.

Patricia McWhorter called the comet spectacular. The naked-eye view was incredible, she said.

"You could see the tail without even so much as binoculars," she marveled. "And then with binoculars, of course, it was even better."

A chart provided by Sky & Telescope Magazine shows the comet visible in the evening sky for several more days, gradually moving north.

Presently it is close to due northwest, about 10 degrees above the horizon once the sky is dark enough to observe the comet. It soon sinks below the horizon. Also, to see it well, a viewer should choose a moonless night and get away from light pollution.