The transparency left a bit to be desired for a "clear" night but I drove to the Naylor Observatory anyway last night and observed 17P/Holmes with my 8x42 Celestron binocular and the ASH 4 1/8" f/4.2 Astroscan, 5" f/5 achromatic finder scope, and 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain.

The comet was visible to the naked eye with averted vision. The coma almost filled the 47 arcminute field of view that an 8mm Brandon produced with the Astroscan. I could see the pseudonucleus with some difficulty through the 17" at 162 and 202x.

I showed two fellow ASH members M1 and M42 and then Mars. The seeing was not very good, as the CSC had indicated, but by stopping down the 17" to 10" and employing a CC30M magenta filter a bit of detail could be detected. The CM at the time was about 120 degrees so the bland hemisphere of Mars was facing Earth at the time.

Dave Mitsky

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