Or just plain Comet Holmes if you prefer. I had pretty decent skies this morning so I went out and looked for the comet and there it was. I am impressed with how diffuse it has become. Much more diffuse than it was only a few days ago, and big, I think it’s about twice as large as it was. It’s no where near as bright as it was, probably because it isn’t as concentrated. The image makes it look brighter than it appeared to me too, the color is about right.  Clicking the image will open a larger version.

Astroprof wrote a very good post about the come, be sure to go on over and have a look.

Oh, I did go looking for the Witch Head nebula too, but between the moon and the clouds moving through, I figured I’d better grab the comet image before daylight came. I am undaunted and I will try again. Our predicted clear skies are completely overcast — go figure.

I can’t help myself, here’s another image that lends itself perfectly for Halloween. This is the Witch Head Nebula. I couldn’t see the witches head at first but once I recognized it – WOW this is great!

This nebula is known as a reflection nebula. Fine dust in this case is being lit mostly from the star named Rigel located in Orion. I want to see if I can get an image of this for my own, it’s pretty cool. It will be competing with my ambition to get an image of the Horse head nebula* (IC434). The image here is from APOD and thanks to them for it.

I maybe dating myself but I think it would be great in one of those black light posters.

*I do have an image of the horsehead but now I want a better one.  To get it, or an image of the Witch Head means getting up at about 3 am, not that getting up is a problem but I have to have a good sky too.  Been awful lately.

A ring of moonlets has been found Saturn’s outer ring. Some of the moonlets are the size of football stadiums, pretty small for a moon. Speculation is a moon was smashed to oblivion by a comet or asteroid, could be, hey maybe they are the big pieces left over from what ever made the rings.

The University of Colorado confirmed the moonlets and issued a press release, you can read it here.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/University of Colorado

In the spirit of Halloween, here’s NGC 6369, also known as The Little Ghost Nebula.

Truly a ghost of the star it once was. This is what is left after the death of a star much like our own Sun. The hot cinder is at the center of the hot gas expelled during the death throes, slowly cooling and fading from sight.

Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) via Hubblesite

Despite the bright full moon I managed to get an image of a wonderfully positioned Comet 17P/Homes yesterday morning. It had been 35 hours after I heard about the outburst causing 17/P Holmes to increase in brightness a million times and I figured it to be fading fast. I was pleasantly surprised to see the comet still so bright.

When I viewed the comet in the eyepiece of the 10 inch scope and saw the small core had a distinctive golden coma, I must confess I looked up checking for haze – there was none. My images were taken with an 80 mm scope. I isolated and enlarged the comet in the above image you can have a look by clicking the small image on the left.

The comet was, and may still be, a naked eye comet for a little while longer. If you haven’t seen it yet, go out and have a look. Hint: even a pair of binoculars will dramatically improve your view. Comet 17P/Homes can be found in the constellation Perseus (chart). To find Perseus look to the northeast right after sunset if you are a morning person, go out about an hour and a half before sunrise and face west, look straight up, then move your gaze about 1 to 2-fists width at arms length down towards the horizon. For me it was way easier to see in the morning.

UPDATE: The comet is apparently developing a tail at 218^o on 07 Nov 07,  I’ll get a new image when it clears and that could be a few days.

About the image:

Telescope: Orion ED 80 (unguided on an LX200)
Camera: SBIG ST 7 XME
Images: 16 (RGB filters) @ 9 seconds each
Captured and stacked with CCDSoft in FITS format
Color Combined with Photoshop

I especially like the image in the lower right. Here’s the press release from Hubblesite:

These sharp images taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reveal at least five shells of stars surrounding a brilliant quasar at the heart of a giant elliptical galaxy. The image at left shows the quasar, known as MC2 1635+119, and its host galaxy [center] against a backdrop of distant galaxies. In the image at top,right, the shells can barely be seen because of the bright light from the central quasar.

The image at bottom, right was enhanced to reveal details of the faint shells. In both right-hand images, the objects below and to the left of the shells are background galaxies. A foreground star resides at top, left. The shells have never been seen before in this galaxy, located about 2 billion light-years away. They are evidence that the giant galaxy clashed with another galaxy in the relatively recent past. The shells are similar to ripples forming in a pond when a stone is tossed in. They sparkle with stars that were swept up from the encounter. The interaction may be providing enough fuel to power the quasar, which dominates the galaxy’s center. This observation supports the idea that quasars are born from mergers between galaxies.

The images were taken June 28 and July 4, 2005 with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

The observation team consists of Gabriela Canalizo and Nicola Bennert of the University of California, Riverside; Bruno Jungwiert of the University of California, Riverside/Astronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague; Alan Stockton of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu; Francois Schweizer of the Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena; Mark Lacy of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; and Chien Peng of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Canalizo (University of California, Riverside)