This picture of the comet was taken on about the 30th March 1997 from the garden of a holiday cottage located near the village of Mousehole in the far west of Cornwall, England. I am uncertain of the exact date as I didn't record it at the time but I have inferred it from the position of the comet in the sky relative to the background stars. You can clearly see the W-shape (on its side) of the constellation of Cassiopeia up and to the right of the comet (the tail of the comet points to it). Star hopping from these stars using an atlas I have found that the comet was almost coincident with the star ω Andromedae.

The picture is slightly shaky as the cable release I was using on the camera had broken and I had to hold down the shutter release button manually for the duration of this long exposure (which was probably about 30 seconds). Apart from the light coming from the nearby buildings, the site was quite dark and the twin tails of the comet can clearly be seen stretching northwards for about 10 degrees. The blue coloured ion tail points directly away from the sun and results from gas being blown from the comet by the solar wind. The curved yellow tail results from dust that is also being blown from the comet by the solar wind but, as the dust is much much heavier, these particles have more momentum and therefore retain the motion of the comet's orbit.

The Milky Way features quite well in this photograph and it can be seen running through the bottom of the W of Cassiopeia. The double star cluster h & χ Persei (NGC869 and NGC884) can also be seen in this region above the comet. The two dark lines running diagonally across the image are telephone lines. Here are the observational details:-