FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: Comets nucleus vanished?

[Jeremy Perez <jeremy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The pseudo nucleus was visible with my 8" f/6 Dob, but it was much  
more subtle than when I last observed it Sunday night.

With the moon out of the sky, Holmes was really showing its stuff. To  
the naked eye, it is a soft puff in Perseus, and through 15 x 70  
binoculars, it is simply awesome, floating brightly amid a rich star  
field. Color is now hard to describe, but I think it looks like the  
most subtle aqua color. Through the telescope, it is wonderfully  
bright, and loaded with soft detail. The subtle outer halo makes the  
comet appear even brighter than it is, as though the radiance of the  
coma is lighting up its surroundings. The outer halo appears brighter  
to me along the southwest side. The coma sports a well-defined  
northeast side with a diffuse southwest edge. Its edges have a hairy  
appearance that looks like it is being blown gently to the southwest.  
Within the coma, the 'central' condensation now looks detached from  
the pseudonucleus. Some very subtle radial features began to coalesce  
after 45 minutes of observing at 120X and 240X. I don't know if these  
are real structures, or just the cometary version of Martian canals.  
A brighter jet seemed to connect the now faint pseudonucleus with the  
detached condensation.

My measurements with the astrometric eyepiece are as follows:

     * Central Condensation: 92 arc seconds / 1.5 arc minutes
     * Coma: 653 arc seconds / 10.9 arc minutes
     * Outer Halo: 1550 arc seconds / 25.8 arc minutes

The full report with sketches can be found here:

http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/000749.html

It keeps getting better and better :)

Jeremy Perez
http://beltofvenus.perezmedia.net

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