Holmes Sunday Evening

Tonight I was observing Comet 17P Holmes in a 12.5" f/5 at 106x. It looks like there are two nuclei (sp?). I see the larger dark coma with a tight bright coma and two definite light spots. I was wondering if anyone else is seeing this? Alsio could this be a background star?

Chris

Homemade 12.5" dob

It appears to split in half????????

Chris Wittum said:

Tonight I was observing Comet 17P Holmes in a 12.5" f/5 at 106x. It looks like there are two nuclei (sp?). I see the larger dark coma with a tight bright coma and two definite light spots. I was wondering if anyone else is seeing this? Alsio could this be a background star?

Chris

Homemade 12.5" dob

Yes, I too see what appears to be 2 nuclei, I'll probably make some additional observations through the night as there appears to be some background stars close to comet. If the additional nuclei is a background star, it will not move with the comet and a later observation (or 2) will confirm the "Background star" theory one way or the other.

David

Photo from tonight using R200s MX-716 ( stack of 30 1sec exp's.

Bob

Attached Image:

The second one is definitely a star

It was obvious after looking at the comet from the Naylor Observatory for a period of a couple of hours on Sunday night that the three other "pseudonuclei" (two of which were rather faint) that I could see through the Astronomical Society of Harriburg's 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain at magnifications of 162 (40mm University Optics MK-70), 202 (32mm University Optics Koenig-II), and 259x (25mm University Optics MK-70) were merely field stars. Apparently, the two stars near the true pseduonucleus (is that an oxymoron?) were GSC0333400738 (magnitude 10.9) and GSC0333400788 (magnitude 8.7).

Dave Mitsky