New Naked Eye Comet - 17/P Holmes

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/instruments-cassini-intro.cfm

What an interesting idea Dave to use Cassini to check out the comet.
Above link to instrument data, Cassini telescopes are fitted with ccd cameras. You have all seen the quality of the images achieved even though these cameras are now well over perhaps 12 - 15 years old.
The mission launched 10 years ago but the cameras were fitted well before that and most likely are even older.

Now the mission is almost totally governed by finance, every move of the spacecraft is planned well in advence. They have a program of must do's and a list of flyby's already well advanced.

They can and have altered set plans if something strange needs a close look. The mission is to Saturn and Titan and only things like the outburst from Enceladus can make a change in the plan.

Every move of the spacecraft is bugeted, every uplink and download is planned down to the cent. It would be great and very interesting to see this available spacecraft checking this out. I have made an enquiry to this effect and I will let you know the answer.

Perhaps other robotic spacecraft could be in a more flexible program and take a look also.

Anyone got a handle on what the boffins are saying re Holmes and its shape, color, properties et cetra ?

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/instruments-cassini-intro.cfm

I have made an enquiry to this effect and I will let you know the answer.
Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society

Thats great Deirdre, it think it would be unique to have a stereoscopic view of this comet, I think that would be worth alot.!

I reckon that given the illumination range of this thing, it will be difficult to get an image that represents the visual view through a scope.

Well, here is a stack of 13 separate shots taken by Dave & I last night through the
20'' With a Canon 350D using various exposure and iso settings.
All the images and the resulting stacked image I have left unprocessed.

I think it gives a very good impression of what we saw through the scope
but it doesn't show the pin point nucleus that is so evident in the wide angle eyepieces.

The impressive thing was to see the pin-point background stars around it
which gave fantastic contrast to the size and fuzziness of this amazing comet.

The view through the dob tonight is spectacular and the pic below does not do it justice at all.



Canon Eos 300D,
90mm short tube refractor
iso 800
4seconds
26october 21.20pm

and a widefield one. This is 10 seconds iso 800

Nice images there Trevor. Just to complete the set from Kerry here is an image close up showing the nucleus and the coma. Taken with a webcam through the 222mm Dob. Just 156 frames processed in Registax 4

Great images everyone.
That's a particularly good one Michael.
It also shows something which I thought I saw in the scope but wasn't sure if it was just me.
About two thirds of the ways out in the halo is a slightly dark band. See what I'm talking about?