A quick scan of the sky with binos confirmed that the comet had grown considerably in size and magnitude. The big surprise, however, is that the telescopic view reveals not one but two tiny bright stellar cores – matching “eyes” in the center of the inner coma. This is turning into one very interesting comet!!!

Update By KerryLH:
Yes get out and catch this comet. It is a nice sight even in binoculars. In the long exposure I can see what looks like three cores but am wondering if they are background stars??? Can you confirm? below are quick snaps one from the 25th and the other from a few minutes ago showing how much of a difference a few days have made.

Taken with my c6SCT@f6.3

Here’s a close up to show the three steller looking points

UPDATE by Glenn

The nuclei look so stellar I was wondering if that was a possibility – on the Cloudy Nights forum, an imager in the UK is fairly certain that the extra point(s) of light are field stars, and Starry Night does show at least one mag 9.2 star very close. Would those stars be bright enough to penetrate the core with such definition, though… keep watching for answers!

?WOW!!! That is sooooo CUTE!!!?

Jackie has a way with words! I?ve never seen a comet like Comet Holmes. Actually, I?ve never seen ANY astronomical object anything like this little cutie. After arriving at the alternate site about 9:50 and missing Jackie by about 5 minutes, I viewed the comet with my 7 x 50 binocs and estimated its brightness at about 2.5. It appear orange-ish to me and definitely shows up as a non-stellar object in binocs. In spite of being alone on a dark road in the middle of nowhere, I could not resist setting up my telescope to get a better view of the comet. Because it is so bright, the comet bears magnification well. (I can’t wait to see it in a bigger scope!!)

Jackie came flying back to the alternate site after calling my cell and discovering that I was there. We spent the next hour and a half observing the comet and photographing it through my 70 mm Pronto. To pick up the beautiful structure within the comet, we needed to use short exposures. Longer exposures did not show any sign of a tail or outlying structure.

To me, the halo around the bright, inner core appeared like a finely and faintly made spirograph pattern ? textured, not uniform. Both Jackie and I thought the core appeared at times oval and then round. It could have been the seeing or possibly (especially in my case) astigmatism. In any event, it is a beautiful sight and I?m sure it is going to continue to be full of surprises.

You can bet that these two enthusiastic Astrodollies will be glued to our eyepieces and cameras as long as Comet Cutie is in the sky!

Ann T.
Astrodollie

Comet 17P by Jackie Fulton

Last night from home I did a quick setup on the driveway, with binoculars, camping chair, and c6 on the goto mount. I really wanted to meet up with the group in Binbrook but was just too tired to pack up the equipment for the long haul.

After looking at various star charts, it took my no time to scan around and find the comet that everyone is talking about. It was so cool to see it as an unusual glowing yellow ball in binoculars. It was so bright that you could even see it with your unaided eyes even with the full moon. I set up my mount for tracking and aimed it at the comet. You could definately make out a tiny bright core surrounded by a large circular glow. I hooked up my camera and snapped a few 30sec shots at a high ISO… wow… It was so bright that no detail was picked up on the camera I just looked like a large solid ball. I had to slow down my shutter speed to 16 sec and knock the iso down to 200. Ok now I was able to see something, the tiny bright core was very evident and there looked like the beginnings of a tiny stub of a tail. I snapped away to get as many frames as possible so that I could stack them. For fun I took one really long exposure to see if there was a tail but I could not see one. Could it develop a noticeable tail in the coming days or weeks??? Anyway my best captures as well as my experimental shot is below.

Canon40D + c6SCT @f10
ISO 200 exposures ranging from 16 to 30 sec. totalling ~3min
I increased saturation a bit and noticed some other colours.

underexposed to show the tiny core

The experimental shot… looking for a possible faint tail…
I read somewhere that the green glow from overexposing is probably from ionized gas, and can’t be seen visually. Cool eh?

By KerryLH

While a group headed out to observe the comet from the alternate site, I observed it from my backyard last night with my 7×50 binos around midnight. It appeared to be a little larger than Mars and had distinct colour. I could easily see a yellow core surrounded by a soft green coma (even with the moon, street and house lights). I didn’t notice that the core was slightly offset from the center, but then binos didn’t provide enough magnification. No perceptable tail.

I’ll be looking forward to when I can train one of my scopes on it to bring out more detail at higher magnification. This “star” was very easily naked eye observable. Didn’t need any charts to figure out that the upside down stylized “F” of Perseus had a new visitor. It appeared to be the 2nd brightest object in Perseus. It’ll be interesting to observe it’s position change over the next few days and weeks (if it stays this bright).

Let’s see and hear the reports from the others that were out observing. I understand that some photos have been taken, and I know we’re eagerly waiting to see some of them. Hopefully the “Astro-Dollies” will post some of their antics and adventures from last night.

I have just come in from observing our new visitor, and Glenn’s description is quite accurate. Comet Holmes is easily recognizable as the star that doesn’t belong in Perseus! I believe Glenn’s estimate of mag. 2.5 is as good as any guess I could make. Through both my 10x60s and 15x70s the comet appears quite compact, tailless, and very bright. The halo is dense, and although to the naked eye the comet appears stellar (at least to these old eyes on a near full moon night) through the binos the halo has quite a bit of texture. I also found it to have a warm colour to it. Looking with my 5″ dob at 72x and then at 140x showed a remarkable sight. The core appears very bright, small but non-stellar, and embedded in a halo. It is not centered in the halo; I found it to be close, but slightly off center. Then there appears to be an even fainter halo surrounding the whole thing. So there seems to be three definable regions. The soft yellow colour seems present in the scope too. What does everyone else see? I am looking forward to further developments. It is changing daily, so keep your eyes on it!

Comet 17P/Holmes has experienced an outburst in the last day or so, apparently bringing it to naked eye visibility.
On its way up to Alpha Persei (Mirfak) it should be easy to locate. Reports are that its appearance is tailless, somewhat stellar, rather like a nova.
Here is a link to a site where you can get a comet finding chart:

http://cometchasing.skyhound.com/comets/17P.gif

Thursday night may be clear, let us know if you spot it.

UPDATE: Having got the map oriented correctly the comet was quite easy to spot – it is definitely naked eye (~mag. 2.5). Find Mirfak and you will see two stars below it forming the base of “dunce hat”. The one on the right is Delta Persei, the one on the left is the comet – small bright core surrounded by a compact halo 🙂

Spaceweather.com has a nice gallery of photos of the comet:

http://www.spaceweather.com

Despite our best intentions, once again the weather gods conspired against us and the clouds never parted to allow us to view the occultation.

Ann T with the ever enthusiastic Alex, Jackie F, Jim W and myself were at our usual observing site atop the hill at Binbrook Conservation area after 6pm. It was obvious from the moment we arrived that the clouds were going to be too thick to even see the moon, let alone the occultation. No equipment was brought out except for a compass to check for orientation and a camcorder to record our high, if misplaced, spirits. We waited up to the time of the event in hopes that we might chance upon a sucker hole in the clouds, but it never transpired.

Disappointed, but unphased, we retired shortly afterwards, some to one of the favourite coffee shops and others to home. We will continue to try until we get the right combination of weather and proximity to our area. Stay tuned to this blog for updates of the next event!

After a long stretch of poor conditions, I had to take advantage of the clear nights this past weekend.

Saturday night I just stayed out long enough to take a few quick snaps of the moon through my 28-300mm (@300mm) camera lens. I was pretty happy that the live preview on the canon 40D really helped to get a sharp focus with my ‘not so great’ zoom lens.

Sunday night I was on a mission to capture some winter DSOs. It was really mild and I figured this may be my only chance to do this before the cold winter nights decide to settle in. I set up in the evening, took a nap since the moon wasn’t going to set till after midnight. There were also some high clouds passing by overhead which I figured would be gone later in the night. I woke up around 12:30am to beautiful clear skies and a warm southwest breeze. I was so happy to be feeling refreshed and very awake.

All photos were taken with the Canon 40D and the SW 80mm Equinox, except M1 which was taken with the 6in SCT.

M45
23x180sec

M42 I am so glad to have finally captured this great nebula
15x180sec
21x60sec
20x30sec
20x10sec

M1 Crab Nebula… So tiny. I did a few sharpening routines to bring out some detail. This object needs to be imaged with a scope bigger than the 6in. Next time I’ll try it without the focal reducer.
18x180sec

KerryLH

UPDATE from Don Pullen

Here’s the much anticipated path information. I had some difficulty in generating the dynamic Google map page, so I’m just posting snapshots of 2 view levels. The green line indicates the path center, while the grey lines indicate the 5km outer-limit range of being able to see the occultation. The closer to the path center, the better chance you have of seeing the greater effect from hills and valleys. For those not aware, Lake Niapenco is name of the lake in the conservation area.

Image 1 covers more area:

Image 2 provides more of a close-up view of path:

The path runs right through the middle of Binbrook Conservation Area. Therefore we could observe from either the main site or the alternate. The trees which line the eastern part of the alternate site may block our view. So it looks like the preferred viewing area will be our regular spot within the park.

The transit will begin at approx 19:06 local time on Oct 22. The moon’s altitude will be 24deg with an azimuth of 126deg (it will be in the SE). It will be about 85% illuminated.

Bring your camcorder, shortwave radio, GPS and of course some binoculars or a scope.

UPDATE: Monday morning
The CSC is predicting some cloud rolling in this evening ahead of the rain. At the moment, it indicates we may get a thinning or maybe even some clearing of the clouds right around the time of the occultation. However, Kerry and the weather satellite images are a little less optimistic. There may be gaps in the clouds, but it’s going to be a close timing game as to whether we’ll be able to see both the moon and a magnitude 6.2 star through whatever cloud cover there may be.

At the moment, I’m still anticipating to head out to the main viewing site at Binbrook between 6 and 6:30pm to set up. I expect the gate will still be open at this time. But if not, I will open it when I arrive and put on the combo lock. Keep in mind that if the ground is soft and wet, do not set up on the grass areas – either set up on the road or in one of the parking areas (pavillion, boat launch area, etc).

I’ll also post an update later this afternoon in case conditions change drastically.

UPDATE: 5pm Monday
The CSC has changed their predictions for the area and it looks like we will have fairly steady but light cloud cover for the event period. The Weather Network forecast and the satellite images are indicating that we may get some clearing breaks up until about 8pm. But at least the rain won’t hit us for a few hours.

So I think we will still head out and take our chances. See you at Binbrook any time after 6pm.

Don

Did some imaging last week. It was a quick night out on the driveway that ended when the clouds rolled in around midnight.

NGC891 is a nice little edge on galaxy that I have been having difficulty seeing in the 6in SCT

M45… this is 3x2min with the 80mm scope. Actually all the frames had cloud cover but luckily I was still able to pull out some detail. I’ll have to attempt this one again.

KerryLH