Comet 17/P Holmes short comments

Various authors

Darrell Lee: I looked at it this morning and tonight with an 80 mm. spotting scope at 60X, and it matched the other scope reports and photos. Definitely not as bright as alpha Persei. It might be the thin clouds, but it looked brighter last night compared to lambda and the other nearby stars in Perseus in my 10X42 binoculars.

Alexander Avtanski: I just checked the comet with binoculars - definitely brighter and bigger than yesterday. I'm setting the 8" tonight!

Darrell Lee: No problems. I looked at it with binoculars last night, and with an 80 mm. spotting scope this morning about 5:50 a.m. The difference in finding it was that Cassiopeia and Perseus had reversed position in the sky, with Perseus above Cassiopeia in the morning.

Michelle Stone: I agree. It is significantly bigger and brighter! Now this is something to see. I've got my 4" refractor set up just waiting for Paul to come home and see it.

It' much more interesting than last night! It's too bad that it has to compete with a full moon.

Scott Mikusko: I thought I was as well, sitting in the middle of sky glow hell that is Mountain View. I started scanning with my 12x63s where Perseus ought to be, and I couldn't believe it when I saw it. To quote Wedge Antilles on seeing the Death Star, "Look at the size of that thing!" :)

As my eyes got more accustomed to the sky conditions, I can make it out visually. Figures this comet would pull a stunt like this during Full Moon!

Phil Chambers: Incidently, the comet is much brighter and larger tonight. Easy to see and with 3 or 4 minutes of dark adaptation (yeah, with a full moon around, joke) is naked eye.

My 12x36IScanons show it to be very large planetary with an obvious bright center.

Alexander Avtanski: You know, my friends, I think this comet is turning out to be one big disappointment...

Where is the challenge?! Where is the sense of achievement for finding it and being able to see it?! You just go out, look up and... there it is - staring back at you! And to add insult to injury, it is positioned in a place that is easy to find and remember, making that right-angle triangle pattern with the adjacent stars that just screams "Here I am!".

Tomorrow I fully expect that there will be an arrow pointing to it, labeled "COMET HERE" in glowing letters. :-(

I'm packing the scope and going in.

Mark Wagner: Its a bit too low for me right now, in the branches of a tree to my west, but I did get a chuckle about how bright this thing is. I could see it in my Orion RA 9x60 finder... looked just like a very bright planetary, in fact, like The Eskimo Nebula - at low power a very bright glow around a very bright central star. I think it has brightened tonight....

Michelle Stone: I too saw a truly stellar object inside the inner core and offset to the edge. That would give this thing three distinct layers.