Another 17/P Holmes **Now with blue Ion streamers**

[pixelman2k1]

Hi All

I guess a lot of folks took advantage of the small clear gap in the clouds last night.

What an amazing object this is - looks just like the photographs through a telescope.

Anyway, here's my take on Comet Holmes, 8" f/5 Newt with ST10 CCD camera and a few 20 second sub exposures.

http://www.astropics.co.uk/comet%20holmes.htm

Also included on the web page is the results of some fiddling with the Larson-Sekanina filter in MaximDL to try and bring out some core detail.

Eddie

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Love the detail on your web page Eddie. Care to share the technique as I'm dying to have a go at this.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[barkis]

I have not even bothered to look at this comet, for the simple reason I was spoiled by Hyakutake and Hale Bopp. But, having seen a couple of images, not least this latest one, it does appear to be an oddball. Has it passed perihelion, or is it still inbound?

Ron.

[pixelman2k1]

Thanks.

Ron, the comet is well out between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and we are essentially looking at it 'head on', so the normal tail activity that we see is behind the comet from our perspective (if it has much of a tail).

All of this dust has to go somewhere eventually, but I have seen some estimates that the coma may 'grow' to a degree or more in size!

Last night it appeared visually much larger and more diffuse - anyone else notice this?

Kaptain - I'll try and do a write up of processing - I have some more images from last night unprocessed at the moment.

Eddie

[russ]

Absolutely stunning Eddie

[pixelman2k1]

Managed some more data last night (Monday 29th) and in a contrast stretched version I have some nice blue Ion streamers.

Images and details on webpage: http://www.astropics.co.uk/comet%20holmes.htm

I thought that the outer and inner coma were both larger than 24 hours earliers but that the outer coma was more diffuse. Anyone else think this?

Eddie