I finally saw the spectacular outburst from the periodic comet 17P/Holmes on Saturday night through my 15x70 Burgess Optical binocular. However, before I could set up my 80mm f/5 Orion ShortTube 80 achromat, clouds began to move in from the west. Since the forecast was for clear skies, I went back into my brother's house to watch the end of the first half of the disastrous Penn State game and a bit of the World Series. Unfortunately, every time I went outside to check on the conditions it was overcast. When I finally went to bed around 2:00 a.m., it was still cloudy.
It was obvious after looking at the comet for a period of a couple of hours on Sunday night that the three other "pseudonuclei" (two of which were rather faint) that I could see through the ASH 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain at magnifications of 162 (40mm University Optics MK-70), 202 (32mm University Optics Koenig-II), and 259x (25mm University Optics MK-70) were merely field stars.
17P/Holmes also exhibited a bright inner and a faint outer coma as well as a fan-shaped area of ejecta extending southwestward from the true pseudonucleus, which appeared distinctly non-stellar at higher magnifications. I estimate that the outer coma subtended approximately 7 arc minutes. To the naked-eye, the comet seemed to be slightly less bright than Algol.
I also observed the comet through a fellow ASH member's 12x36 Canon IS binocular, my 15x70 Burgess Optical binocular, my 80mm f/5 Orion ShortTube 80 achromat at 15 (26mm Tele Vue Ploessl) and 57x (7mm Nagler Type 6), the ASH 4.25" f/4.2 Edmund Scientific Astroscan (28mm Edmund Scientific RKE and 13mm Tele Vue Ploessl), the ASH 5" f/5 achromatic finder scope (32mm no name Erfle and 13mm TV Ploessl), a fellow ASH member's 10" f/10 Meade LX200 SCT (36mm Meade QX, 28mm Edmund Scientific RKE, and 26mm Meade QX), and the ASH 14" f/10 Meade LX200GPS SCT (55mm University Optics Ploessl and 36mm Meade QX) during the course of the evening.
The yellow hue that 17P/Holmes is exhibiting was most evident through the 80mm ST80 at 15x. The best overall view was through the 17" at 162x. A brighter view at 118x (55mm University Optics Ploessl) was also quite nice as was the view through the 14" SCT at the two magnifications used.
The image posted at
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/image...mes-SumAll.jpg illustrates the comet's motion and is quite similar to what I saw visually through the 17".
This historic cometary outburst is providing some absolutely unique views and is yet another of the unexpected events that add spice to amateur astronomy.
Dave Mitsky