Comet Hyakutake has provided a spark of excitement for a number of people at Brown.
David Targan, associate dean of the College, has led two observation trips - one to western Rhode Island, another to New Hampshire - to observe and photograph the comet.
On Saturday, March 23, "a group of students, teaching assistants, local amateur astronomers and I went to Jerimoth Hill [in Rhode Island] and saw one of the most spectacular astronomical sights any of us have ever seen," Targan reports. "The comet's tail stretched halfway across the sky as seen by the naked eye. It was brighter than Comets West (1975) and Bennet (1971), and probably brigher than Halley's 1910 appearance. I talked with Jack Lubrano (class of '24) and we talked about what that comet was like. He saw it as a little boy 10 years old. From his and other descriptions, I gather this might be considered the comet of the century."
On Sunday March 24, Targan led a group to New Hampshire's Mt. Monadnock to get an unobstructed dark-sky view of the comet. During the climb, it became apparent that clouds were rolling in. "Using a cell phone we contacted Brown's astronomical night assistant, Bob Horton, who was about to make observations from Jerimoth Hill," Targan said. "He said it looked better there, so we headed back down to Rhode Island, only to find that it became cloudy down here during the two and a half hours it took to get back."
"It has been exciting to show students what for all of us will probably the comet of a lifetime," Targan said.