Comments on: Breaking news: sudden naked eye comet

By: Russ & Sal

Russ & Sal — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:38:33 +0000

We saw it last night (early morning actually) over Ojai, California. Clear skies – Awsome!

By: Random1209

Random1209 — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:55:04 +0000

Cool, 400 000x is a lot

By: thomas

thomas — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:55:49 +0000

I have taken a few timelapse movies of the comet over the past few days and am out every night that i can until its not visible anymore. its easy to get photos of this one.

check them out here:
http://www.revver.com/playlist/show/291594/

thomas

By: greg stanton

greg stanton — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:11:36 +0000

i just saw it here in east tn and it was amazing. you could see it with the naked eye but you could see it really good with a pair of bionaculers

By: Jim Oss

Jim Oss — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:09:25 +0000

29 OCT 07 PM

Phil and all,

As the song goes, “…and the skies are not cloudy all day.” (night too) so the seeing should be good tonight in SW Oz. I’ll take the old Dobsonian out tonight for a look see before Moon rise, and report back tomorrow. I can turn off the security lights out here on the farm and light pollutin’ Dodge City is 30 miles away so no problem.

Thanks!,

Jim Oss, hobbiest astronomer and amateur radio operator (AA0PP)
homeontherangesunflowers@yahoo.com
Jetmore, Kansas

By: Burzycki.org - Tech and Interesting Facts

Burzycki.org - Tech and Interesting Facts — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:14:45 +0000

[...] does not look ‘Perseus’ familiar to us due to the bright stellar object now.” Spaceweather and Bad Astronomy have more details. Thanks to BAUT member Keith G for the photograph. Here’s a link to the forum [...]

By: james

james — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:44:13 +0000

WOW!

By: Pradipta

Pradipta — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:19:44 +0000

True, visible naked-eye even in full moon! with 90mm meade etx, its a fuzzy ball, very big, bigger than what jupiter is seen.
[is the tail forming there?]

By: Benjamin Vandermark

Benjamin Vandermark — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:11:19 +0000

The skies over upstate N.Y. cleared lastnight….Even with the big, bright moon…there it was…a fuzzy in all its glory!

By: Tom Wolf

Tom Wolf — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:04:22 +0000

Great object, the color is yellow green big fuzz ball in 10×50′s at 10 pm from Boston area. Go Red Sox!!

By: First Watson, Now Holmes - Asymptotia

First Watson, Now Holmes - Asymptotia — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:20:44 +0000

[...] (here), as well as further links to information sources and another post on locating the object here, and some of his pictures [...]

By: laowaitattler

laowaitattler — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:30:41 +0000

Thanks for the heads up…would have missed it otherwise.

By: Jim Atkins

Jim Atkins — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:26:48 +0000

RATS! the smoke from the So Cal fires is heading my way as we speak! I’m hoping for a slight wind shift for tonight.

By: Changcho

Changcho — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:56:48 +0000

Saw it with my wife and kids last night from California- with the unaided eye it looks just like a ~2.5 magnitude anomalous “star” in Perseus, until you observe with binoculars (we used 7x50s) and it looks round, but extended (not fuzzy). I turned my scope to observe in more detail and it looks very spectacular. In appearance it looks similar to those 8th or 9th magnitude comets, but much much brighter! The nucleus is quite bright, and the coma is well extended and looks round at first, but it’s actually slightly elliptical. Can’t wait to see what it looks like tonight.

By: shasta

shasta — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:49:47 +0000

I ran out and saw it this morning at 6 am in Southern Oregon and it was so bright! I cannot wait to see it again tonight.

By: Here Comes Comet 17P/Holmes!!! : SKIRMISHER: News for the hot-blooded, manly geek

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:20:28 +0000

[...] seems to be crashing and burning like other famous things you know, has just become super-bright people say you can actually see it without those huge telescopes! We’re not kidding! See it here! And [...]

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:49:26 +0000

Oh I’m so excited to see pictures, maybe it will be clear tonight, I am taking the scope out as soon as I get home!

By: TorbjÃ¶rn Larsson, OM

TorbjÃ¶rn Larsson, OM — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:43:54 +0000

In the literature I read, this is what happens when they start up their fusion torches in preparation for Earth orbiting and takeover.

Oh, you study astronomy literature along with the sci-fi? Well then, would this comet become a prime target to fetch some of a comets juicy innards for free?

By: Bart B

Bart B — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:35:26 +0000

I got a look at this last night. Spectacular! An extra ‘star’ has literally just sprung up out of of nowhere in Perseus!

I wrote a more thurough observation log on my blog: http://www.bartbusschots.ie/blog/?p=561

Is’t astronomy fantastic, you just never know what you’re gonna see!

Bart.

By: D

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:30:30 +0000

I saw this tonight through a large Dobsonian scope about 15″, it looked great. You could not see a tail since the sun is opposite the comet in the celestial sphere thus the tail points away from us. But you could certainly see the nucleus and the gases around it. I saw it from N. Texas DFW area at about 02:00 UT. Fantastic!

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:08:33 +0000

Bleah… totally overcast here.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:05:01 +0000

Come to think of it, when I looked at it thru my big binocs, it did look a bit like Saturn– not round, but elongated. Nuts. Now I’m dying to see decent deep CCD images!

By: retardigrade

retardigrade — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:53:56 +0000

In my 11×80 binos it is very bright and compact golden yellow at about mag 2.5; it also appears distinctly out-of-round, like a tiny but extremely brilliant elliptical galaxy, with the long-axis apparently in line with the sun. I just talked to a colleague a few hundred miles from me here (i’m in rural Wisconsin) who has a 20-inch dob trained on it and he thinks he’s begun to see evidence of a tail at high magnification.

If I had come across Perseus this evening without knowing what was going on, I would have declared, “What the heck is THAT doing there???” and immediately assumed it to be a nova. Just spectacular!

This is a whopping increase in brightness for a comet so far from the Sun. One wonders if it got knocked by a small asteroid out in the asteroid belt where it is…perhaps the Hubble or other large telescope may be able to discern the signature of a debris fan like that which the Deep Impact probe produced on Tempel 1.

By: Blondin

Blondin — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:25:30 +0000

It won’t move much from night to night now since it’s already been round the sun and is on it’s way back to the outer solar system. It was near the sun about the same time McNaught was dazzling us in both hemispheres at once.

I hope it remains bright for a couple more nights. If it isn’t the clouds it’s the dang waxing moon…

By: lorna

lorna — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:49:31 +0000

In my 8 inch dob, it looks like a brighter elliptical galaxy than I’ve ever seen–bright center with not-quite perfectly round halo. I kept thinking I was having focusing problems until I realized that oh, the halo will never be crisper than that. in 9x finder, distinctly yellow. Naked eye, it seemed brighter than Mirfak, which was more dimmed by light pollution. I’m not yet very good at determining magnitudes, but I’d guess brighter than 3.0