comet 17/P Holmes - Outburst

On Night of 24th October 2007, while checking mailbox @11:45 before i went to sleep, i saw mail from Amar Sharma (An Astronomer from Banglore, India) regarding comet Holmes is visible to naked eye at magnitude 2.8 !!!!!!!!!!!


I just ran a top terrace of building with my small 7X25 tasco binocular, after checking postion of comet in cartes du ciel software. And to my surprise Perseus is no longer in familier shape, a bright star was near Delta Persei was distorting known shape of perseus. It was so bright that I can't belive and rechecked the position on CDC.

Looking through small binocular the view is not better than naked eye. So set up my telescope in 10 min. Even in 4" at 40X it is no defferent from a star. The Bright moon was washing out sky, but still comet was very easy to see.

Comparing brightness with Delta and Epsilon persei, It was close to Delta persei in brightness. Delta persei is mag 3.0 and Epsilon Persei is mag 2.9.

I observed it till 1:00 AM. I called Anurag who is at Dhule, Maharashtra. and informed him about comet, he to rush back and noticed comet within as second.

Anurag latter observed comet whole night and estimated that comet brightened little and as bright as Epsilon Persei.

Hope this comet remains for few more days..

Dont miss this...

Sameer Thakur