Deirdre sketches Comet Holmes from Ireland
Comet Holmes on 8 November 2007, sketched by Deidre Kelleghan from Ireland
Earlier this year a faint distant comet called Comet Holmes brightened by many factors of 10. It was mainly a northern hemisphere object though in early November a viewing of the comet from Mudgeee in NSW was chronicled in this blog. Deidre Kelleghan, the president of the Irish Astronomical Society, kindly sent a couple of her drawings of the comet. Here is what she said of the first image above:
I did seventeen drawings of Holmes between the initial outburst on October 24th and my last sketch of it on December 3rd, when it looked like a hammerhead shark.
I sketched it with my 8mm eyepiece till it filled that, then in my 15mm till it expanded some more to fill that up, and finally in my 20mm eyepiece.
My last view of it was on December 9th in a 35mm eyepiece, it was enormous but very very diffuse and not really well defined for sketching. Perhaps in a darker place it may have stood out better, but all of my Holmes were sketched from suburbia.
The weather is not always kind to Irish astronomers, so we have to take what we can get and run outside at every opportunity.
November 8th 2007 22:10 UT Reflector FL1200mm/15mm eyepiece /80X
Pastel/Gel Pen/Seeing 3/ Trans Poor/ Kildare, Ireland /Mag 3, south is upI was in Co Kildare observing with my friend Michael O’Connell from Tullamore Astronomical Society, when I did this sketch with my 8 inch dob. The trailing edge was so much more hairy or ragged than I had observed before and the material spewing from the nucleus was becoming very jet like . The leading edge was more chiseled, and it gave the comet a look of forward movement, with a swept back look on the trailing edge. A little like a jelly fish. I enjoyed the fact that dim stars were visible through the coma from time to time, as the comet charged through Perseus.
Comet Holmes on 16 November 2007, sketched by Deidre Kallaghan from Ireland
Deidre says of this image:
November 16th 2007 23:10UT Reflector FL1200mm/15mm eyepiece /80X Pastel/Gel Pen/Seeing?/ Trans Poor/ Wicklow, Ireland Mag ?Too cloudy to determine the mag
South is upIt was a very cloudy evening, I was aware that Holmes was the largest object in the solar system. Every now and then I had a look out for a gap and at 23:10 there it was still naked eye almost ready to engulf Mirfak. To my delight the comet almost filled my eyepiece circle. What a huge huge expansion since my last view on November 8th.
17P Holmes was so transparent, the nucleus was not apparent at all, the material spewing from the middle was much less defined but was so elongated and fine and nebulous. There was a star in the centre not the pin point nucleus of previous days. Holmes was a fantastic object for sketching, it was both an inspiration and an education in using and filling eyepiece circles with giant comets.
The rest of my Holmes sketches are on my website.
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