New Naked Eye Comet - 17/P Holmes

To be fair to you John, it is a remarkable coincidence that the comet has crossed two relatively bright stars. Considering the fact that it has just outburst and with cloud cover preventing you from seeing the motion of the comet from earlier in the evening, I can perfectly understand why you would have got excited.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

The comet appears to have broken into at least two (possibly 3) pieces.
Dave Brannigan and I have been imaging this since the clouds broke with Daves Atik 16IC and an 8" SCT. There are two definite chunks now widely seperated in the core.

Get out now and look!!! (remember you heard it here first!)

Calm down guys..just background stars, TYC 3334-0788 and -0738.

I saw those stars just inside the edge of the halo earlier this evening..the comet has moved bringing then towards the centre.

DG's and DB's shots blow mine out of the water, but for what it's worth, here's my effort - 2 second image - hand held camera to eyepiece at around 23.40ish:



Phil.

Did I miss something?

Welcome Stevie - perhaps I was the only one to notice your post in the melee...

Comet 17/P Holmes
28th October 2007
18:40 UT Mag 2
1200mm/8mm/150X Pastel/ Conte/ Black Paper

Here is my sketch from yesterday evening. I had a longer look into the halo around the nucleus. The material emanating from
the pin point center seemed to be heading in a more southerly direction than on the 26th. I could see darker
areas fanning in the opposite direction in the inner halo. A star was visible just inside the outer halo.
I managed to sketch in some stars but have not identified them yet.
Because I could see a star through the out gassing then it must be very thin? The star was visually similar in size to the
comet nucleus but a little dimmer.

All this was visible even though there was a 17 day moon rising almost directly under the action.






Comet 17/P Holmes
29th October 2007
00:30 UT Mag 2
1200mm/8mm/150X Pastel/ Conte/ Black Paper

Here is my sketch from later on past midnight.
The coma looked different from earlier the nucleus had two stars for company which really did look like a split. The coma had a darker area and a bright area, with a ying and yang shape going on.
Earlier when I sketched in the star in the outer coma, it looked like it was just in blackness like the coma had vanished in that area.
In the second sketch the brightness within the coma seem more diffuse.
The nucleus and the bright star seemed to enhance the light within the coma even though the star is lightyears away and the nucleus is millions of miles away ??
It was much harder to see detail within the coma after midnight as the comet was closer to the moon.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society

Spaceweather has a cool shot of what the comet looks like in comparison to Jupiter - really puts things in perspective:

www.spaceweather.com/comets/holmes/27oct...ns2a1i1unnn2a1521rh1

Wow, we're talking one huge outgassing eruption. I remember that the Hale-Bopp coma was huge - can't remember the figure, but some where hundreds of thousands of miles was quoted... :shock: