Here are two emails from Monday October 29. I'll update this when the photos are processed. - Scott
*****
Hi everyone!
Got back about an hour ago. Scott Berg was able to come out with me. That
comet is amazing! stunning! The nucleus and the brighter central glow
filled the video camera field of view. We put the f6.3 focal reducer on and
was just able to image the whole thing. I grabbed video with the camcorder
and will process the pictures with registax (probably tomorrow night).
There was a bright nucleus, surrounded by a still bright glow that was
offset from the nucleus. Then a fainter outer glow surrounded the entire
nucleus and inner glow. There was a distinct band of less brightness
somewhat inside of the outer edges. I hope all this shows up on the final
pix. I'll be sure to share these. Scott will get them up on the blog
space. I think these will be worth sending in to Sky and Telescope!
The video camera was left with the F6.3 focal reducer on the telescope.
This thing is so big that it was large through the finder scope! I
encourage the rest of you all to get out there and see it!
Randy B
*****
Randy is absolutely right! The image was very atypical of comets and much easier to find and see than I was expecting. There was the bright spot for a nucleus surrounded by a very bright snowball, surrounded by a dimmer sphere. There is no tail or cone shape. The size was really surprising. We tried the Stellacam, the LPI and good old fashioned eyeball. They all worked well.
You can read more on the home page of
http://spaceweather.com/http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6157http://www.space.com/spacewatch/071025-comet-holmes.htmlScott
