New Naked Eye Comet - 17/P Holmes

Finally got a glimpse this evening through a break in the clouds.
Nive photo Paul. You can really see the tail in the negative.
Derek

Hi again

thanks Michael O and dmsdona
I was lucky this evening and got a second chance for looking at this comet
it's bigger then 4 days ago and has moved
i made a new montage of this, so you can see the distance it has traveled
along the skies
this and the originals are in my web-folder

i hope you like it



picasaweb.google.nl/H.Nieborg/Astrofotos...#5128798670130880018

This comet is nearly 1/3rd the size of the full moon, it not exactly nearby as its out by the asteroid belt, anyone able to find an estimate of the size of this thing?

that's what i wanted to know Dave L.

i found an article on wikipedia, they talk about a size of 70% of the diameter of the sun:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17P/Holmes

interesting article

This was Holmes last night at a distance of 2.48 au from the sun



Now compare this with Tuttle(mag 12) at 1.59 au from the sun




I used the small angle formula on the Holmes image and this gave a diameter of about 1 million km for the coma.

I'm well impressed that you can get Tuttle at that magnitude Kieran - excellent work!