Star-gazer found a "fuzzy spot" in the sky which changed his life

Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, spoke to him

TOM Bopp wasn't looking for comets on the July night in 1995 that a "fuzzy spot" appeared in his telescope. Yet that same smudge, later to be named comet Hale-Bopp, has changed his life completely.

He has been on a near constant lecture tour since. People at hundreds of venues across the US and Canada have heard bow an amateur astronomer with a love of the night sky first located the most spectacular comet to come into view in 600 years. Last night at Trinity College, Dublin, and again tonight he tells an Irish audience about the comet.

Mr Bopp is actually the co-discoverer of Hale-Bopp, hence the object's double-barrelled name. He was star-gazing in the Arizona desert north of Phoenix on July 22nd with his friend, Jim Stevens. Alan Hale, meanwhile, was also searching the night skies from his home in Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

Both spotted the smudge and both then did what any enthusiast would do - contact the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory to log the object.

"We knew we had a comet, but we didn't know if we had a new one," explained Mr Bopp.

He and Mr Stevens "were looking at deep space objects like galaxies and star clusters. We weren't looking for comets. It was just like any other Saturday out observing."

However, the night proved to be profoundly eventful for Mr Bopp. Mr Stevens had just surrendered the eyepiece after aligning it on the M70 star cluster near Sagittarius. Mr Bopp took over and after a few minutes noted the now famous "fuzzy spot" that was to become Hale-Bopp.

He couldn't focus the image into clarity so the two began watching, realising that they might have picked up a comet.

Enthusiasts usually have celestial catalogues which plot stars and known objects. "There was nothing plotted in that location," he said, raising their hopes that it was an unknown comet.

Their guess was proven correct within days and, as is the custom in astronomy, the discoverers' names will forever be attached to comet Hale-Bopp, providing a little bit of immortality.

Mr Bopp won't be seeing his comet again, however, because it is now on its way out of the solar system and won't make a return visit for 2,380 years.

There is plenty to keep him busy in the meantime. His lectures have developed into a full-time job and he is also devising education programmes for presentations in schools.

His aim, he says, "is to get people fired up about astronomy. The comet came and went but the sky is always there and it is full of beautiful objects."

He tells his audiences that comets are there for anyone to find. "It can happen. You don't have to have a 200-inch telescope to be able to do it."

He picked up the astronomy bug from his father, Frank, who has accompanied him on his Irish visit. "My dad started me out when I was 31/2. We watched a meteor shower and I can still remember it," he says.

His daughter, April, wasn't bitten but his granddaughter, Lauren (8), looks set to duplicate his enthusiasm. His wife, Charlotte, is willing to put up with his night time hobby. Mr Bopp says: "She knows where I am.

Thomas Bopp delivers his talk, "The Comet of the Century" at 7.30 p.m. today in the MacNeill Theatre, Hamilton Building at Trinity College. The event is organised by the Trinity Astronomy and Space Society, and admission is £2.