Smoke and Mirrors

went out last night to give the 70mm Skylux a good run out. the seeing was fantastic. I only used the 20mm in combination with the BarlowX2. I got a few minutes studying M42 orion Nebula (always favorite). also seen a couple of doubles - but don't know what they were. Had a look at Mars, not much colour and not as good an observation as 2 weeks ago. I spun the scope round to look at the pleidies (using only the 20mm) everything was so good....seeing was wonderful, but then......then.... my neighbour must have thrown some green grass onto thier open fire, caus suddenly the southern sky was covered in thick white smoke.......agghhhhhhh. End of observations, but fun while it lasted

by the way, does anyone know what the surface brightness is of M33, I had a look at Holmes and M33 thru the bino's last night through gaps in the wood smoke from next door to make a comparison. M33 is obviously dimmer - but what magnitude is holmes?

M33 is mag.5.5

Recent estimates of 17P/Holmes put it at around mag.3.5 to 4.2 and about 55 - 80 arcminutes across.

Check out www.cfa.harvard.edu/icq/CometMags.html#0017P for regular estimates.

Phil.

Thanks Phil for that info. They were both near enough in the same piece of sky - so it was interesting to swing the bino's from one to the other and try to compare...