The quality of the tunneling spectroscopy of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 can be impr
oved significantly by tunneling into the edge of a single crystal, as
opposed to directly into a cleaved face. This junction geometry allows
tunneling exclusively in the a-b plane, and we will. discuss some fea
tures that can be reproduced consistently with this technique. This ex
perimental approach also provides us a unique opportunity to observe t
he gap anisotropy within the a-b plane. We find that the energy gap (D
elta(ab)) varies from 20 meV to 40 meV, with the maximum value along t
he orthorhombic crystal axes and the minimum value along the Cu-O bond
direction. No nodal line has been observed, possibly due to the limit
ation in angular resolution of the tunneling technique.