October 27 & 28: A formerly very dim comet called Holmes (17P) flared up October 24th growing many magnitudes brighter -- it went from 12.5 to 3rd magnitude which is about 1 million times increase. It's currently outside the orbit of Mars and in the southern portion of the constellation Perseus. Saturday night, Oct. 27, a day of clouds, mist, and rain, I stepped outside to a clearing sky. It took me only a second to find Holmes and view it through my 10X50 binoculars. It was a beautiful sight, though to the uninitiated, it's just a big fuzzball. That is, of course, how it actually looked... a large, brightly glowing puff with a bright dot in the center; that's how comets look "head-on" with any tail streaming behind and away from the viewer. The glow was slightly yellow or golden... quite an unusual object. Sunday night I opened Stephens for a special astronomy class observing session. I spotted the comet in the big telescope at 7:45 PM and was surprised... Two bright spots were right in the middle of the cloud looking like they might be part of the comet, oriented directly across the nucleus from each other. I watched excitedly to see if there were any changes. Alas, as the evening wore on the bright specks appeared to move off center and away from where the nucleus lay confirming they were background stars and not a part of the comet itself. Only three students showed up but it gave me two hours in which to observe the comet and attempt some images using the old nine-inch scope. They're my first telescopic comet photos. Here's one that has been heavily "Photoshopped" but it basically shows what I saw... Comet 17P/Holmes moving with three background stars showing through its coma. The comet has the astronomical community excited and that has been fun all by itself. I'll probably offer a public viewing session for Friday, Nov. 3 when the weather is predicted to bring clear skies.
Photo: Comet 17P/Holmes as it appeared at 9:34 PM, October 28. Two stars shine through the coma like headlights through fog. Photo was made using the century-old Cooley Telescope (a 9-inch refractor) and a Canon Digital Rebel XT camera - 2 seconds at ISO 1,600. Photo: James Guilford, Stephens Memorial Observatory, Hiram.
It was cold (about 30 degrees) and breezy at about 9:30 PM when I went outdoors to check on Comet Holmes. The weather lately has not been hospitable to observing what with clouds, rain, and even a bit of snow. Tonight the sky was briefly very clear overhead in North Royalton. Aiming into Perseus with my binoculars I fished about only briefly before spotting the cometary cloud. It has grown even larger than it was but has faded dramatically. Even with our "clear" skies light pollution and the dimness of the object made it impossible to see without the binoculars. Predicted weather for the next few days call for mostly cloudy with rain and snow so this glimpse at the sky is apparently about all I'll be seeing for a while.
I had scheduled an Observatory open night for Friday, Nov. 2. The weather and observing forecasts agreed that Friday night would be, at the very least, a very good night to view Comet 17P/Holmes and that's just the way things turned out. Friday night, for a good couple of hours after sunset, boasted an outstandingly transparent sky. Because the local daily newspaper, The Record-Courier, was kind enough to run our event announcement and our photo of the comet, we had a very good turnout. In all 37 folks of all ages came to see this most unusual celestial visitor. The century-old telescope performed outstandingly keeping good track on the moving object. We could see at least one background star shining through the huge coma. The sky was so clear that I could make out the Perseus Double Cluster (NGC 884 & NGC 869) with my unaided eyes! A glorious sky, indeed. Visitors asked many questions about comets and the Observatory and seemed to have a very enjoyable evening. The event closed out at 10 PM and I shot a number of sky photos with and without the dome in the foreground -- I need to process those images but they look very promising. With this entry is a medium telephoto shot of the triangle Comet Holmes formed with two of the southern Perseus stars. Got home rather late after a most enjoyable night under the stars.
In the picture: Comet 17P/Holmes floated through the southern portion of constellation Perseus in October and November 2007 as it flared to a million times its normal brightness. It became a naked-eye object and formed an easy-to-spot triangle where normally there was no such figure. The comet is the yellowish orb in the lower left-hand portion of the triangle, seen here near the center of the picture. Image recorded at 10:14 PM, Eastern Standard Time, Nov. 2, 2007. Canon Digital Rebel XT, 10 seconds, 112 mm, f/6.3, ISO 1,600. Photo by James Guilford
October 27 & 28: A formerly very dim comet called Holmes (17P) flared up October 24th growing many magnitudes brighter -- it went from 12.5 to 3rd magnitude which is about 1 million times increase. It's currently outside the orbit of Mars and in the southern portion of the constellation Perseus. Saturday night, Oct. 27, a day of clouds, mist, and rain, I stepped outside to a clearing sky. It took me only a second to find Holmes and view it through my 10X50 binoculars. It was a beautiful sight, though to the uninitiated, it's just a big fuzzball. That is, of course, how it actually looked... a large, brightly glowing puff with a bright dot in the center; that's how comets look "head-on" with any tail streaming behind and away from the viewer. The glow was slightly yellow or golden... quite an unusual object. Sunday night I opened Stephens for a special astronomy class observing session. I spotted the comet in the big telescope at 7:45 PM and was surprised... Two bright spots were right in the middle of the cloud looking like they might be part of the comet, oriented directly across the nucleus from each other. I watched excitedly to see if there were any changes. Alas, as the evening wore on the bright specks appeared to move off center and away from where the nucleus lay confirming they were background stars and not a part of the comet itself. Only three students showed up but it gave me two hours in which to observe the comet and attempt some images using the old nine-inch scope. They're my first telescopic comet photos. Here's one that has been heavily "Photoshopped" but it basically shows what I saw... Comet 17P/Holmes moving with three background stars showing through its coma. The comet has the astronomical community excited and that has been fun all by itself. I'll probably offer a public viewing session for Friday, Nov. 3 when the weather is predicted to bring clear skies.
