On October 25th the sky gazers were in for a surprise! A comet had suddenly appeared in the north east in the constellation of Perseus. It was not a new comet – many knew of its passage for almost 100 years. Its passage had been ignored by the amateurs for the simple reason that it was expected to be beyond the limit of small telescopes. Even large telescopes had to really hunt for it.
There was a sudden brightening of the comet. Even before it hit the news head lines many amateurs had spotted it. The increase in brightness was noticeable and reported almost every hour. It was very to identify it amidst the bright stars of the constellation of Perseus.
From the cloudy skies of Bangalore, it was really very disappointing that the event of outburst was lost. The hype around the biggest full moon also stole the show.
Fortunately, the comet continued to brighten and the comet remained bright enough to be seen without any aid when the moved away. The phase angle is not favourable to view its tail. However there is no indication that it had a significant tail.
100 years ago
The comet Holmes was discovered almost a hundred years ago as a faint blob by Edawrad Holmes in England. Within fifteen days of discovery it put up a big show by suddenly brightening. It faithfully returned after about 6 years as predicted. But it was too faint to be seen without any aid. It was almost lost in 1906. It was recovered only in 1964 based on predictions of its positions. Subsequent visits once in seven years were not very impressive.
During the current apparition it passed through the perihelion (point closest to the sun in its orbit) on 4th May 2007. Now it is on its way back. Currently it is at a distance of about 2.5 AU (1 AU is the average the earth-sun distance 150,000,000km)
Splitting
Splitting into pieces is a very common phenomenon among comets. But this eruption leading to a million fold increase in brightness is very rare. Therefore this is an excellent opportunity to address the question related to the origin of eruptions.
The comet is still moving within the boundaries of the constellation of Perseus. At sunset the constellation is low in the North East. By about 10:30 it attains a comfortable elevation. The comet is expected to remain bright for another fortnight, assuming that it is behaving the same way as it did in 1896. Thus any evening when it is clear scan the North East part of the sky. A fuzzy patch next to a fairly bright star is the comet; even through the telescope it looks like a patch with no impressive tail.
At last we have a comet visible without telescopes!
