Hale Bopp,

I just had a new scope (10" Meade) but was having troubles getting the thing collimated. After setting it up on a dark spot, a friend and I started looking at HB. But to our disappointment it seemed as if there were some rings around it. My friend studied astronomy and had never seen that around a comet. But try as we might we could not get rid of those rings. I felt quite bad about it, being a new scope and all. The next day at work I thought, lets see if there are any pics on the web about HB. And lo-and-behold THE RINGS WERE THERE, it was NOT a failure of the scope, the rings were seen all over the world!!

I felt GREAT!, it truly felt like having them discovered myself.

I have since learned a lot more about scopes, and have given the Meade a complete remake. It's now better than ever before. And I do have a lot of fun using it. Though I have moved, and don't have dark skies anymore :-(
But I still remember that experience. To me it was truly memorable.

Rien