During breaks in the clouds, I observed the comet on Friday night with the ASH 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain and 5" f/5 achromatic finder scope. The coma was bigger than the largest possible true field of view the 17" can produce, which is approximately 26 arc minutes. I could see the pseudonucleus through the 17". A hint of a tail extended from the ragged, trailing end of the coma. There were well over a dozen stars visible within the coma. Magnifications of 118, 144, 162, and 259x were used.

I also viewed 17P/Holmes at low power (18x) with a 108mm f/4.2 Edmund Scientific Astroscan and with my 8x42 Celestron binocular. The comet was visible to my unaided eyes only with the use of averted vision.

Dave Mitsky

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