[SJAA-announce] FW: Naked Eye Comet visible

[Rob Hawley]

A normally dim comet has erupted bright enough to be visible in the city
lights.


Here are some charts to make finding it easier
http://www.robhawley.net/17phomes.png

http://www.robhawley.net/17pHomesdetail.png


For more information check out the extensive comments on www.observers.org

Rob Hawley 

-----Original Message-----
From: sf-bay-tac-bounces at seds.org [mailto:sf-bay-tac-bounces at seds.org] On
Behalf Of Dennis Beckley
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 9:01 PM
To: sf-bay-tac at seds.org
Subject: [TAC] Comet 17/P Holmes

Posted by Brian Skiff on amastro:

                  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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