Spectacular jet in comet Hale-Bopp

This false-colour image of the large jet now observed in bright comet Hale-Bopp is a computer-enhanced version of a near-IR CCD-frame. It was obtained on August 31 1995 with the multi-mode DFOSC instrument at the Danish 1.5-m telescope on La Silla by Emilio Molinari from Osservatorio di Brera, Milano-Merate, Italy. On this photo, North is up and East is to the left. One pixel measures 0.5 arcsec and the circular field has a diameter of 65 arcsec. The intensity scale is indicated with the colour bar at the bottom; the intensity increases towards the right