The Bright Comet of 1970

Comet Bennett or C/1969 Y1 was one of two brilliant comets to grace the 1970s, along with Comet West. The above black and white image was captured in the morning sky of April 1970. As noted by the photographer and long time Sky&Telescope editor “This was the first bright comet I had seen. I missed the great Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965 because I didn’t know about it until it was too late – the problems of being a teenager in the 1960s without access to anyone else interested in astronomy”.