Sunday, October 28, 2007

Comet Holmes in a Super Outburst!


The last time this happened comet 17P/Holmes was hundreds of thousands of times brighter than usual when discovered on November 7, 1892 in London England by E. Holmes. This outburst is bigger. This comet is one million times as bright as just a few days ago before the outburst. No comet in history has ever had an outburst like this. Comet Holmes is a 2.5 magnitude naked eye object in Perseus. It could stay pretty bright for weeks.
Photo of comet 17P/Holmes with 12.5" telescope. For this photo I used 18mm eyepiece, Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera, 2 second exposure.
This photo looks very much as it appeared in the telescope. Note the starlike center and the fan of dust within the coma.