A quick look at Holmes

Alexander Avtanski

Looking through the 4.5" scope, I could not see much of a change since yesterday. A bit bigger, but this was to be expected. Probably a bit fainter under magnification than yesterday too, but I'm not so sure about this - yesterday I was using the 8".

One thing that I didn't notice today was the pinpoint stellar-looking nucleus - it was more of a gradual "bump". This might have been caused by bad seeing, or the smaller scope. But if it is real, it might mean that the comet will be becoming fainter from now on. We'll see... Also, the "fan" was smaller as compared to the overall size of the comet.

Finally, I decided to try my hand (or eye?) on determining the angular size. I got a stopwatch, took out the 10mm Plossl, put in the 6mm Ortho, and slowly brought it to focus... on the underbelly of a nice cloud.

No more comets for today. :-(

- Alex