Huge comet outburst reported, 17P/Holmes Options

[elakdawalla]

Re: rover observations, Jim Bell says: "I don't think we can do it power-wise. Regardless, you're talking 55 arcsec pixels and a spherical blob without a tail... Hrm."

--Emily

[Stu]

So that's a "no" then...?

[ugordan]

Still raining here, cloudy for over a week now. The comet might grow as big as the Moon for all the weather here cares...

*groan*

[CAP-Team]

The clouds went away, and finally after days we have a clear sky now in the Netherlands.

The comet is visible beautifully in the constellation Perseus, especially with binoculars.

[NMRguy]

The Amsterdam skies finally relented and opened up for a few hours. I was surprised how easy it was to find Holmes, even in the light-polluted skies. It was visually much more diffuse than a star. Strange and beautiful.

If only I had my gear (that is still in storage back in the States...). Best of luck to the rest of you.

[Adam]

I finally managed to see it too, found it easily and it looked spectacular through my telescope. As others have noted, some sort of tail-like feature is visible.

[ilbasso]

oDoug, I wondered too about the collision/impact scenario. (Deep, DEEEEEEEP Impact!!) However, it's at a relatively high inclination from the plane of the ecliptic, which would somewhat reduce the probability of collision. Also, it's very interesting that Holmes displayed a similar outburst when it was discovered in 1892 and again in early 1893. Very strange object!

[dilo]

Two friends made a cool picture + spectrum of the comet from L'Aquila (Italy):
http://quasar.teoth.it/gallery/albums/user...17P_28ott07.jpg
Consider that, in reality, the external green halo is a lot less luminous than yellow one and image dynamic was somehow compressed in order to see it. The emission Hg row is due to terrestrial light pollution.
Image was published also by a german site dedicated to comets
I encouraged the friends to submit the picture to APOD and Spaceweather.

[ngunn]

I've just been out for another superb view with binoculars and small birdwatching 'scope. To my eyes it now resembles a contour map of a conical mountain coloured in three distinct shades with relatively sharp boundaries along the 'contour lines'.

It continues ballooning (maybe in a series of pulses?) and remains just as bright. Amazing!

[Paolo]

I just saw it for the first time! From my house some 10 km east of Milan, in one of the worst light pollution in Europe, the comet is plainly visible with the naked eye! And with binoculars it is a perfectly round green blob with hints of a structure. Unfortunately it was at the zenith at the time and it was quite difficult to keep observing for more than a few tens of seconds. I hope to see it again the next days using my 5 inch telescope.

[Juramike]

Sweet! At midnight local time it is just visible through the skylight in the upstairs bedroom.

I don't even have to go outside!

[elakdawalla]

Well, I finally saw it, it was quite easy to spot even in the intensely light-polluted sky of my neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. And I could convince myself it was fuzzy, though pretty much everything in the sky looks fuzzy around here I don't have binoculars, much less a telescope, so I couldn't confirm its color or appearance. And I don't know what Perseus is supposed to look like, so it didn't seem so odd to me to see a triangle there. But I strongly suspect that I will, from this day forward, recognize Perseus, as "that constellation that used to be a triangle when the comet was there."

--Emily

[lyford]

WOWZERS! Even in light pollution drenched San Diego it shines through. Simply gorgeous.

[Wayne Farmer]

Re: rover observations, Jim Bell says: "I don't think we can do it power-wise. Regardless, you're talking 55 arcsec pixels and a spherical blob without a tail... Hrm."

--Emily

Emily, what about imaging from other spacecraft? Comet 17C/Holmes' tail is pointed away from Earth and Mars, so it would be nice to view the tail from the side. Even if Cassini had enough resolution, I think the comet would be too close to the Sun for viewing from Saturn. Are there other options for imaging, such as Ulysses, or the various comet and asteriod intercept missions?

[djellison]

Ulysses doesn't have any cameras.

NH and Cassini would be the only spacecraft worth having a go with, and even then I'm not sure the geometry is too good - and they'll just resolve little blobs - not much more than that.

Doug