Holmes grows...

Bill Drelling

The diffusion of gas and dust as it gets furthur out from the nucleus looked quite interesting. You could easily see intensity variations in the dust/gas that lay between the outer edge of the nucleus and the outer halo, with the outer edge of the halo being a few ADU brighter then the gas/dust inside. It reminded me somewhat of the view we get of the Ring Nebula, where the circular (2-dimensional) edge of the PN forms a ring due to the apparent increase in density of the gas. The difference with teh comet of course is that the volume inside of the outer the halo is filled bright gas/dust.

Very cool. This was my first look at it and I loved it!

Bill Drelling