Comet Holmes- 2 arc minute tail - comet within comet

This morning was wonderfully clear and using the 8-inch and the MallinCam and a 12-second integration I was able to easily observe an apprent dust tail on Comet Holmes of about 2-arc minutes. made the comet look like a speeding, cartoon canon ball! The tail was less obvious, but still apparent, in six and 2-second integrations. There was a seventh magnitude star in the core of the coma, pretty close to the nucleus. I judged the coma to be about 2 arc minutes across - in the two-secondintegration it looked a lot like a comet within the comet!

Here are pastel skecthes I did while observing the video live.

12-second integration

View image

At 12 seconds most of the comet was overexpsoed, but what was immediately apparent was the tail - what I assume is a dust tail, not the fainter gas tail that has been showing up in some recent photos. This exposure also put emphasis on the donut like ring - still symetrical - that surrounds most of the comet. Using stars down to 15th magnitude I was able to make a reasonable guess at the size of the tail as I saw it - 2 arc minutes.

6 second integration

View image

Going down to a six second integration the comet got more iteresting. It was still over exposed in the core, but in the outer halo you could see a dark, almost purplish area betweent he core and edge on the right - what I think of as in front of the comet. The dust tail was still apparent, though not as clearly defined as in the 12-second integration.

2 second integration

View image

At 2 seocnds I felt I got the best overall view. The tail was there, but more like a ragged edge fading off of one side. The bright donut of thehalo - this is a true halo - was there. The core of the coma was not only fanshaped, but when viewed with the nucleus looked for all the world like a traditional comet inside this most untraditional of comets. The nucleus was easily visible along with a seventh magnitude star near it and a couple of fainter stars. Tw of these fainter ones gave me a good way to estimate the maxium width of the fan at about 4 arc minutes. (That's as big as the hwole come was just a few days ago!)

I tried faster speeds all the way down to 4. I found I liked the view at 32 (about half a second) quite satisfying, but fatigue and cold were catching up with me, so I didn't attempt to sketch it.

Why don't I just record these views? Two reasons. Mainly because sketching really gets me into the subject - I feel like I see the comet better if I do this. But also because I find fiddling with the technology of recording a distraction. In fact, for me the lesws technology the better - but don't think that means I'm ready to give up my video camera! This is really the most enjoyable viewing I've experienced and I love being able to do pastel sketches in white light where I can see the subtle colors I'm trying to apply.

Speaking of colors, for me the dominant shade of the comet is blue and a hint of straw-color that depends ont he exposure and which section of the comet you're viewing.

I did view it visually as well, and found it nearly filled the 8-24mm Hyperion zoom when zoomed in to 8mm AND without the focwal reducer in place,.