New Naked Eye Comet - 17/P Holmes

I'm trying to image it to get some kind of detail in the core. 0.2 of a second just washes out the core and makes it look like a bright star. Some longer exposure CCD shots show no obvious tail. But the Moon gradients could well be masking that, oh why oh why couldn;t this have happened under a new moon!!

just grabbed a quick look in a 90 mm short tube refractor, definitely got a yellow / golden tint to it. and is distinctly fuzzy even at low powers. Under higher powers it puffs up substantially.

time to haul out the dob before bed. Lets hope it keeps on brightening. just had a peep in cartes du ciel, its moving away from the sun, but it gets closest to us on 5th november at 1.603 au. at the moment it is 1.635 au from us.

Just seen it from Dundrum in South Dublin.

I had to double check in the NS11 as I thought it was star in the binoculars. I didn't even have to plug it in - just pointed the finder scope at it and it popped up in the eyepiece. It's the first comet I've been able to find without computer aid!

It looked round to me rather than elongated as if we were seeing it head on.

Michael.

I'm trying to image it to get some kind of detail in the core. 0.2 of a second just washes out the core and makes it look like a bright star. Some longer exposure CCD shots show no obvious tail. But the Moon gradients could well be masking that, oh why oh why couldn;t this have happened under a new moon!!

Ah, so it's not just me then. Tried to grab a few shots also but nothing worth posting.

Just grabbed a quick shot. It shows the core as definitely non-stellar although is hard to get much else in this moon-light.

Yep, same here. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. Started out on 15 seconds and worked all the way down to 1/5 of a second and all frames washed out.

It looks exactly as Michael described - just like a compact glob. Nice halo around it.