Tom Bopp doesn't have to work in the parts department of a Phoenix concrete plant anymore.
He's far too busy traveling the world lecturing about Hale-Bopp, a comet he discovered July 22, 1995, during an amateur stargazing trip south of Phoenix.He talked about his discovery recently in Cisne, Ill., a small community of about 650 and the hometown of his wife, Charlotte.
Bopp's entry into celestial immortality nearly didn't happen at all. "My friend Jim Stevens asked if I wanted to join our astronomy club for a trip about 90 miles south of Phoenix, and I said, `You bet.' "
"First of all, my car wouldn't run," Bopp, 47, said. "The carburetor was messed up, and I had to borrow my dad's car. Then, I committed the worst faux pas of the astronomy world by driving onto the site with my headlights on, and got ribbed a lot about that."
Luck would quickly change for Bopp as his friend wheeled his telescope around to view a star cluster near Sagittarius known as M70.
"I'm working my way across the star field, and I noticed a faint fuzzy patch in the right side of my eyepiece," Bopp said. "We looked through two star charts that had more than 200,000 celestial objects charted and couldn't find anything that matched what we saw. That's when Jim said he thought I'd just discovered a comet."
What Bopp saw was the same object Alan Hale was watching from his driveway 400 miles away in Cloudcroft, N.M. Hale, who does comet magnitude estimates for the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, was quick to notify authorities by e-mail.
It was a totally different story for Bopp.
"First I tried to call the Lowell Observatory but got their answering machine. Then I tried to call Western Union for a direct number to Lowell and that didn't work - so I just drove back home and dug the number out of an old manual and eventually filed my report with the Central Bureau."
About 8:25 the next morning, Bopp received the phone call that changed his life. "Charlotte woke me up and said there's somebody on the phone from Harvard Smithsonian or something like that.
"The voice on the other end of the phone said, `This is Dan Green with the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Congratulations, you have discovered a comet. We'll do some further checking and get back with you.' "
Life for Tom and Charlotte Bopp hasn't been the same.
Bopp has appeared in News-week magazine and been on just about every network news show. He was featured in a Turner Broadcasting production titled "Fire in the Sky."
"My in-laws, Onis and Charlene Carter, are thrilled to death," Bopp said.
The Carters admit they never really gave much thought to the celestial bodies until Hale-Boop came along. "I wasn't really excited about it, you know, until it got to where you could see it. Then it got to be a pretty big deal," Charlene Carter said.