Nice one Kieran.
Looks like its still good under good conditions.

Looks like its still good under good conditions.

With a near full moon I could not even get it with the finder scope. I had to plug in the ra dec in autostar and even then I was running 2 minute subframes binned at 2x2 compared to 30 seconds 10 days ago. This is rapidly becoming an imaging only object.

First of all thank you for the compliments John Murphy, dmcdona, Dave Lillis, and i like to sent in this picture for the monthly contest, I hope i comply with the rules. Still waiting for a final shot this last few days, I think the comet just becomes more interesting because of its parabolic shape, but I agree with phoenix: i had difficulties seeing Holmes through the finder of the scoop.
And in visual, with binoculars i can see it faintly but have to move my scoop on bright background stars for an estimate position and can't see Holmes at all in the finder of my photo camera anymore so i have to take a shot and then look if i got it, then adjust my scoop again in an estimated direction etc., so it becomes a trial and error situation.
The photos i did take were almost over exposed by this blue haze of indirect moonlight, and although i can see the comet if i try to enhance the picture only a very grainy and dark comet is left.
not usable for a nice follow up. Who pulls the plug?
On the other hand I cannot complain as a first scoop owner for 2.5 months i had a very exiting time with the moon, orion and Holmes.

Henk,

If youre worried about the rules check this link if you haven't already.
www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopic.php?t=3735

Heres the closest I could get Holmes to Mirfak

C80ED, RebelXT, only 4x 1min exp due to weather on Nov 21. Although the clouds did give Mirfak a nice glow!!



dave Gradwell

That's a great shot Dave!

Here's a quick shot tonight - A definite shape but no tail...

1730 this evening (28/11), in between getting home and going to the IAA meeting.



And the conventional view....

Here's an old image I took in early November.

www.astroshack.net/images/solarsys/CometHolmes.jpg

Taken with 0.4m SC Telescope at f/5 using an Apogee AP7p CCD camera.

Cropped image of Comet Holmes taken on November 7, 2007. The seeing and transparency were good which resulted in imaging dust in the tail and in the coma. The images are 30 minute LRGB total exposures were the Luminance data comes from an I or IR filter. Exposure times were:

I = 30 x 30 seconds. B, V, R = 10 x 30 seconds each filter.

Most detail are shown using IR for the Luminance than a straight full spectrum Luminance. Looking carefully, one can make out subtle detail in the image. The image combines the colour composite while using an FFT high band pass filter which brings out detail using that technique. The telescope was tracked on the comet and images were stacked on the nucleus therefore you can see some separation in the field stars. It seems that the comet is slowly turning from coming almost straight on (or away) from the observer.

Image processing with Mira Pro 7.5

Eamonn A

Kingsland Observatory MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory.com

That is a cool image Eamon, lots of detail there. Eerie colour though....
Saw it quite easily last night with the naked eye before the moon rose. Was surprised to see the large hazy patch and had just about convinced myself that it could not be that bright but the binoculars confirmed it.

After a day and a half of the worst weather in a long long time
the skies cleared tonight for around a half an hour and I have to say
it was quite steady and transparent seeing.

I was very surprised and pleased to be able to still clearly see Homes naked eye!
I took a quick snap with the Canon 350D and the 18-55mm lens.

I was on the points of getting the dob out when the clouds rolled in
super fast.

Here's two I got yesterday evening through gaps in the clouds...

At long last a bit of clear weather and a chance to try out the Astronomik EOS CLS insert filter. I decided to try target Holmes with a 90mm lens to see what happened and this is the result.....


Canon 350D, Tamron 90mm F2.8 lens at F2.8, ISO1600, a stack of 22 x 2 minute exposures...... using an Astronomik CLS (light pollution) EOS insert Filter.

A larger resolution version is available on the Flickr site.

That is a really nice image Steven. The fact that it is compact, yet big enough to yield loads of detail, makes one appreciate it more in my opinion. Colour is superb. Is that natural, or preference-based? You have got to link to the high-res version online!

Seanie.

Hi Seanie

The Raw frames looked Blue, due to the CLS filter, however, once the images were stacked, the background was very black, and high in contrast.

Very little processing was done in photoshop on the stacked image, I just increased the saturation a bit and then cropped etc.

This is a link to the 1024 x 768 version as requested...

farm3.static.flickr.com/2075/2082896743_d2a9be399d_o.jpg

Best O luck

This is a link to the 1024 x 768 version as requested...

farm3.static.flickr.com/2075/2082896743_d2a9be399d_o.jpg

Loving it Steve. Almost flawless. The 'almost' bit refers to the largest stars showing some 'nebulosity' around them, probably just an artifact from some of the frames not 100% in allignment when they were stacked. But they don't take away from a beautiful image.

Spot on.

Seanie

P.S. does it look like there's a tiny cluster left-of-centre under Homes tail?

A great image Steve, that bow shock is very dramatic.

Seanie

P.S. does it look like there's a tiny cluster left-of-centre under Homes tail?

See todays APOD with NGC 1245
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071205.html

Seanie

P.S. does it look like there's a tiny cluster left-of-centre under Homes tail?

See todays APOD with NGC 1245
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071205.html

Wow, answers my question, and makes the answer very dramatic as well.

Woke up at 0500 to find the sky was crystal clear - the Met Office said it would rain all night! There was a frost which is unusual for this coastal location even in December, and one of the cats had been sick on the carpet - the Met Office didn't mention anything about that either!

Holmes was clearly visible to the naked eye so I got a good stack of wide shots with the 50mm lens shown here cropped to various degrees.....

Wide



Medium



And closeup - pushing it a bit this one!



Got the little blue cluster NGC 1245 too!

Beautiful night here - a pity I have to be in Ballycastle for 0930 otherwise I'd have made more of it. A bit hazy at time and some LP, but this is my best Holmes so far I reckon, though the back end is a bit messy - I could only juwt fit this in the fov and that's with a 762mm FL scope!

A fabulous image Paul, I'm just back in form abit of observing and comet Holmes is still visible to my surprise its looks like a bigg diffuse faint nebula abit below Mirfak.

Great image Paul! It's great this this comet is finally starting to actually look like a comet!

Bart.

Fantastic pics. As stated it's nice to see Holmes looking like a comet instead of a fuzzy star. I caught it once a couple of weeks ago in my scope and it just looked like so many pics i have seen of it. Your pics really give it life.

Frank and I had a good look from my back garden and we could clearly see Holmes with the naked eye on Tuesday, 11th December, it was a big faint glow in the sky, its outline was hard to make out but it was definitely there.

Caught a Geminid cross almost right across the bow of Holmes last night. If there was anyone imaging it and caught it, twould make a snappy shot.

Frank and I had a good look from my back garden and we could clearly see Holmes with the naked eye on Tuesday, 11th December, it was a big faint glow in the sky, its outline was hard to make out but it was definitely there.

Early evening 1800 Friday 14th December 2007. Partly cloudy. Clear view of Holmes comet in binoculars. A very faint hazy blob above and to the right of Mirfak. About the size of a full moon.


Paddy Doyle
Athlone