[AZ-Observing] Re: Comet 17/PHolmes - Swan Band filter

Hi All-
Concerning AJ's comments about gas - One of our members took spectra night
before last, and it shows no emission to my eyes - looks like a solar
spectrum indicating mostly dust.  Of course, at what, 2.4 AU, there might
not be a lot of ionization going on...  Keith's comment forwarded below
with a link to his spectrum.

-Dean
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I managed to observe it last night, an easy visual object.

I also took 65 min of spectra with the 14" RCX, the preliminary processed
result is here:

http://www.xanaduobservatory.com/17pholmes.htm

It's an interesting comet spectra and there will be plenty of analysis going
on in the next few days.

Go check it out!

Keith Schlottman

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> In response to Frank Uralic's request for anyone using this kind of filter
> I can respond to a yes I have and did so last night, Thursday.  Steve Coe,
> a full moon, some bright yard lights and I were out north of Scottsdale,
> AZ with my 8" SCT at about 145X.  Without the filter this is a
> magnificent, yet mysterious, comet.  Don't know what I can supply for an
> observation that hasn't been said before.  Yes it does have obvious
> planetary nebula like features.  It is round, large, bright with an
> extremely brighter coma and a stellar nucleus that is offset from the
> coma.  I didn't attempt to measure its position.  With the Swan Band there
> is a much fainter fan shaped halo of about 1/2 again larger than the
> entire comet.  A surprise to me as this hasn't shown up in Jeremy Perez's
> excellent drawings nor any of the astroimages.  The comet was at about the
> focus of the halo, which is about where one would be expected.
> Unfortunately I didn't try to measure the position angle so can't sa
>  y much about that.
> The Swan Band filter is supposed to make comets that consist mostly of gas
> brighter and those mostly of dust fainter.  So my suspicion is there is a
> little more gas than dust.  Yet, other than the halo, never did we see any
> hint of a tail.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Clear skies,
> AJ Crayon
>
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