Originally Posted by BBigJ

After wimping out yesterday, I dragged my 10" out tonight. Even in the light polluted skies of the Bay Area it did not disappoint. There were three distinct layers, 1) a star-like center core which was off center in a 2) bright diffuse core, and a 3) circular outer halo. Did it have this much structure last night? The pictures I saw from yesterday didn't show it, but some of the pictures from today don't either. I left the truss tube assembly on my scope together so I can easily track it over the next few nights.

There has been a lot of speculation that the flare up was due to a collision with an asteroid. This seems plausible to me, but the link someone posted earlier shows the comet to lie well outside of the solar system plane. Does the asteroid belt extend this far out of the plane?