Figure 3.

Images of some modern very bright comets. (a) C/1965 S1 (Ikeya-Seki), peak mag =−10, photographed from Kitt Peak on 29 October 1965 by Roger Lynds (National Optical Astronomy Observatory/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy/National Science Foundation). (b) C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp), peak mag =−1, obtained with the Canada France Hawaii Telescope and the 8K CCD mosaic on 16 September 1996 when it was at 3.1 AU, about 200 days before perihelion, by K. Meech, O. Hainaut and J. Bauer. (c) C/2006 P1 (McNaught), peak mag =−6, viewed from the ESO Paranal observatory in January 2007 by Sebastian Deiries (ESO). (d) C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy), peak mag =−4, photographed from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut D. Burbank on 22 December 2011 (credit: NASA/Dan Burbank).