New Naked Eye Comet - 17/P Holmes

Holy freaky comets Batman !! :shock:
its like something out of startrek !
Cant wait to see it again this week as the weather gets better. !

Kieran,

I think thats the best shot I've seen yet on these boards and others. Well Done

I have yet to see any input globally from any of the pro's. Is there any scientific evidence yet as to what is causing this or is it all still speculation (good speculation but still some hard data would be nice) :

Kieran,

I think thats the best shot I've seen yet on these boards and others. Well Done

I echo those sentiments. It looks like you have caught a shockwave phenomenon of some kind there. The bubble makes it seem this comet has hardly travelled at all!

I have yet to see any input globally from any of the pro's.

John ... have a look at the Comet Mailing List where you will find a fair few messages from the likes of comet guru John Bortle. John used to write a Comet Digest column in Sky and Telescope a number of years ago but they dropped it. He is an expert on comets although an amateur astronomer.

List is at tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/comets-ml/

John,

Thanks for that but still no hard data. What I'm looking for is mass estimations, mass loss due to the outgassing (it must be fantastic), reasons for the outgassing, any change in orbit caused by the outgassing and loss of mass. I have seen precious little hard data (read none) on this yet and it makes you wonder what kind of an event is needed to get wheels in motion. Nasa was supposed to be organising a Hubble viewing of this event last night but there is still no information on their site (that I could find). Maybe someone in Armagh could enlighten us as to what is going on, I know Mark Bailey was (is) a comet enthusiast (certainly an Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt enthusiast).

Mark - if your monitoring these boards - can you shed any enlightenment in our direction - Please, it really would be much appreciated.

Back to speculation - I believe there is a tail to be seen, only its currently pointed away from us and may become more apparent as earths attitude to it changes, if only it lasts a couple more weeks or so. I believe there was a second outburst during the 1892 event that kept the comet visible for longer and maybe that will happen again (wishful thinking). Anyway as its cloudy and Metcheck is not forecasting kinder skies over the coming days we may be left indoors speculating rather than being productive at the eypiece/camera.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, QUB, is on the case...

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7070108.stm