[AZ-Observing] Re: Comet Holmes tonight

  • From: "Rick Tejera" <saguaroastro@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:13:33 -0700

Since the baseball game was over after the 3rd inning and Mythbusters was a
repeat, this made a very welcome diversion. Once I tilted my head to get
Perseus in the "easy to recognize" position, the comet stood out like a sore
thumb. In my 15x70 bino's it was a fuzzy ball with a definite bright center.


Realizing this was worthy of dragging Gert out, I dragged Gert out. At 71x
The Coma was very bright & large and surrounded by a dense haze, best guess
about 5 seconds across. I kicked it up to 200x at which the coma was an
exceptionally bright, almost translucent white and the haze actually seemed
to grow to about 10 Sec. I too I saw the extensions Jeremy mentions. Further
study will tell if one of his guesses is correct.

Donning my super villain cape and turning into "Tasco" the evil Ridiculously
High Power Man, I kicked it up to 400x using my shorty Barlow. Again the
Coma was very distinct and again the Extensions noted before were obvious.
Not foiled by the good views at (insert Deep Bellowing Voice here)
"Ridiculously High Power" I went to "Ludicrous Power and added as second
Barlow to bring it up to 800x. Well now The evil Tasco started to win,
although I did see it, the image finally started to degrade.

While going back to Sane Power I heard my neighbors two doors down and
invited them for a looksee. Pointing it out in the sky to them first I gave
them a look at 71x & 200x. They though it was pretty cool. Their daughter
Myla, mentioned she took an astronomy class at GCC about 6 years ago. From
her description, it wasn't Dave's class though.

A quick look at the moon and we called it quits for the night. I did make
about 4 Sketches while I was out. This was certainly a pleasant surprise.
Thanks for the kick in the pants.

Clear Skies
Rick Tejera
President, Editor SACnews
Saguaro Astronomy Club
Phoenix, Arizona
www.saguaroastro.org
saguaroastro@xxxxxxx 
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeremy Perez
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 21:50
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Comet Holmes tonight

I'll second the drop everything recommendation. Be sure to look also  
for some faint gauzy material outside the hard-edged coma that Brian  
described. I'm picking up some soft extensions in this faint halo  
that appear softly at PA 120 degrees, and a bit more distinct  
extension at PA 210 degrees. Perhaps developing tails? Or just  
irregular ejected material?

Jeremy
http://beltofvenus.perezmedia.net

On Oct 24, 2007, at 8:57 PM, Brian Skiff wrote:

>      I second the recommendation to drop everything and go look
> at the comet.  No, city lights + Full Moon are not a problem.
> This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, pals and gals!
>      In our 16-inch Cassegrainian on Mars Hill, the comet nucleus
> is clearly double inside an eccentric almost annular-looking
> inner coma.  The brighter nucleus is dead-centered in a perfectly
> circular, hard-edged outer coma.
>      It is very easy to see naked-eye, and obvious if you know
> the constellation Perseus.  It appears completely stellar naked-eye,
> and as it was rising tonight was even twinkling like the neighboring
> stars.  That's how small the nucleus is.  I'm making it just a bit
> brighter than gamma Persei (V=2.93), and about 0.3 mag brighter than
> delta Persei (V=3.01), so call it mag 2.7 or 2.8 (Oct 25.1 UT).
>
> \Brian
> --
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