The Dutch Observatory

Comet 17P/Holmes

May 22, 2008 on 10:41 am | In Comets, Uncategorized | Comments Off

I guess I will start with some images which I made from Comet 17P/Holmes.  I spend considerable time imaging Holmes over a two month period.  First the comet itself, than when the coma extended my field of view, the comet in the evening sky against the constellations and other sky objects.

My first image of Comet 17P Holmes imaged the evening of October 25, 2008 from the Dutch Observatory

Image showing the increase of the size of the comet over a 7 day period

Holmes on the evening of 10/28 with identifying starfield. 
Thanks Clevis for your help with this!

This was Comet 17P/Holmes the evening of 10/31/2007 at 9:06 EST.  We had trouble identifying the location of Holmes because we could not find the double star to the right of Holmes in the catalogues.  Eventually with the help of Bill Gray from Project Pluto, the double was identifed as ES 465 (T.E. Espin’s list of double stars)  Most other catalogues listed the double as a single unresolved star.  Interesting to note that the two stars of the double were observed and measured 7 times between 1907 and 1971 and that in that period the stars moved 1.7 arc seconds away from each other.

The final image from Holms here, is an image taken on its 115th  discovery aniversary date,
November 6, 2007 2:20 UT