How to see Comet Holmes late October and November
Look in the northeast in the evening for a 3- or W-shaped pattern of stars. See it? It's easy to spot. This is the constellation Cassiopeia. The comet now appears as a fuzzy star in front of neighboring Perseus. It is near Mirfak, Perseus' brightest star. Use binoculars to sweep for the comet. Don't mistake Comet Holmes for the tiny, misty, dipper-shaped star cluster Pleiades, visible on the lower right of this chart, or the bright star Capella on the lower left. Remember ... stars are pinpoints. The comet is round and fuzzy, without a tail. Chart made by Starry Night Enthusiast.
Fuzzy, round, visible in urban skies
Since October 24, 2007, the brightest comet visible in the past decade has been visible in the northeastern sky during evening hours. If you spot it, and you are in the northern hemisphere, you can watch it throughout the night.
This is Comet 17P/Holmes – which was discovered 100 years ago and was thought to have long since fizzled out. It surprised sky watchers on October 24 with a stunning outburst. On October 23rd, the comet was 25,000 times too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. It has brightened some one million times to become visible with the eye alone, despite the light of the bright waning Hunter’s Moon.
This is a rare opportunity. Naked-eye comets don’t come along very often. By all means … get out and sweep the northeastern sky for the comet, if your sky is clear!
How you can find the comet
Step 1. Face northeast. Which way is northeast? If you live in the northern hemisphere, the sun is setting in the southwest now. Watch the sunset, wait an hour until the sky gets dark, and stand with your back to the sunset direction. You are now facing northeast.
Step 2. Get oriented in the sky. Look first for a 3- or W-shaped pattern of stars. See it on the chart to the right? The W-shaped pattern is easy to spot. This is the constellation Cassiopeia. The constellation Perseus is below Cassiopeia in the northeast. Perseus is not as bright or prominent as Cassiopeia, but the comet now appears in Perseus.
Step 3. Sweep for the comet. “Sweep” just means look steadily, systematically, sweeping your eyes from side to side at the place in the sky where you think the comet should be. Comet Holmes looks like a round, fuzzy ball in front of Perseus. It’s near Mirfak, Perseus’ brightest star.
Remember, all stars look like pinpoints. Comet Holmes is a fuzzball.
Don’t mistake Comet Holmes for the tiny, misty, dipper-shaped star cluster Pleiades, visible on the lower right of our chart. Also, the bright star Capella will rise below and to the left of the comet (lower left of our chart).
Unlike the traditional notion of a comet, Comet Holmes does not yet have the classical comet tail. Note added October 30, 2007: yesterday astronomers began reporting signs of a tail for Comet Holmes.
As always, a dark sky will show you more. If you don’t see it, use binoculars to sweep for the comet.
Comet Holmes links us to skywatchers in history
This comet has been seen before. Maybe one of your own ancestors saw it, a few generations ago. The comet was discovered in the 1890s by E. Holmes of London, reportedly a regular observer of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), which is near the comet’s current location on the sky’s dome. Holmes knew this region of the sky very well, perhaps as well as you know the streets of your own neighborhood. So he noticed when – on the evening of November 6, 1892 – an object appeared in this part of the sky that had not been there before. Since comets are named for their discoverers, it was named Comet Holmes.
Since its discovery, Comet Holmes has made 16 loops around the sun. Comets are icy bodies with volatile ices on their surfaces, but this comet – since it had been near the sun so often – was considered an “old” comet. That’s why its outburst was so surprising.
Photos and descriptions of Comet Holmes
On Thursday, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics – home to the Minor Planet Center which tracks known comets and asteroids – began observing the comet and sending in providing reports and images. The results were described by the public relations staff as “beyond all expectations,” as staff on distant mountaintops and in suburban backyards responded to the call.
Image provided by: Joe Zajac and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
These astronomers reported that the comet was unlike anything they had ever seen:
“It was very nice this morning, about 5:30. Easy naked eye in spite of a full Moon. It was a slightly yellow fuzzball in 10 × 50 binocs, bigger in diameter than I had expected. It was a lovely sight.” – Sam Palmer (CfA)
“I saw Comet Holmes last night and this morning. It looks like a big yellow globular cluster through binoculars. Truly a one of a kind object. I hope more folks take the time to view it. It was holding steady at probably just under 2nd mag and was the third brightest ‘star’ in Perseus as seen with the naked eye.” – Dan Rehner (CfA)
“Easy naked-eye object, even in near-Full-Moon sky. Appears to be as bright as (or possibly slightly brighter than) delta Perseus. In small binoculars, it is extended with a hint of color in the coma (but in moonlit and slightly cloudy conditions difficult to judge if color is real).” – Gareth Williams (CfA)
Great season for comet sweeping! Again … a dark sky and binoculars will help but a comet reportedly visible in spite of bright moonlight is a noticeable comet indeed. If you see it, give us your report below.
17PHomes by Gary Kronk, comet expert. The greatest!
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I had bought a small telescope today Oct 26 2007 for a trip out to West Texas in the Big Bend Country away from light pollution to look at the night sky in the mountainous desert. I went to a telescope shop to buy a set of binoculars to replace the ones that were taken from my pickup truck about 3 weeks earlier.
For what it would cost for a good pair of 10X50 binoculars was this marvelous Orion ShortTube 80T telescope. So tonight to familiar myself with the telescope I set it up to look at the moon and some stars if I could in the middle of light pollution near downtown Houston, Texas.
I have never seen the moon as I did tonight with this telescope and I scanned the sky looking for stars and was about to put up the telescope and got out my new compact Steiner Binoculars 10X26 I had bought to replace the other similar binoculars that were stolen along with the 10X50’s and saw this fuzz spot in the sky. I could not see it with the naked eye but I could with the 10X26 and then I trained the telescope on the fuzz spot.
When I first looked at the Comet with the telescope it had a bright center point with what looked like a perfectly round circle of material. As the moon came closer the bright center faded away. What the object reminded me of was Dandy Lion Puffball.
I wondered what it was and got on the computer and looked at several websites and thought it was the Palisades Star Cluster until I found this website and your picture of the Comet and knew this is what I saw.
I have seen all of the Comets since Hailey’s Comet in the 80’s and they all had a tail but this object does not so I would never have thought it to be a Comet.
So you see if my pickup truck had not been broken into and my binoculars had not been stolen and caused to replace them I would never have seen Comet Holmes, and I was able to up grade from what I had. It has taken my star gazing to another level all is good after the aggravation three weeks ago.
We live near downtown in a city of almost 1 million … and we were out walking last night, stopping for a bite to eat and a bit of window shopping … everything was brightly lit up with lots of traffic on the streets … this is a big party weekend in our town, which has many young people, because of Halloween. And we were stunned to be able to look up – in our light-polluted skies – and see the comet in the light of the moon. It was clearly not starlike. It was round and fuzzy. Can’t wait for the moon to move away!
Deborah
I woke up this morning at 6 am and rolled over and looked out my window. I saw a bright, fuzzy, yellow light, I thought must be Jupiter, but was much too bright. I moved to another window without screens to see if that cleared the image I was seeing (since it was 6am on a Sunday, my I thought my eyes weren’t focusing!). It was so bright and beautiful, I laid in bed for an hour staring at it.
It’s definitely fainter than Mirfak: roughly intermediate in magnitude between it and Algol. And not much fuzzier than these stars—-but observing conditions are terrible here, so far.
Kris, if what you saw was “brighter than Jupiter” it wasn’t Comet Holmes … unless the comet got much brighter overnight! When I looked last night, Jupiter was in the southwest and the comet was in the northeast … Jupiter was much brighter. The moon was up this morning in the west. Which way does your window face?
Monterey Bay, you’re right … Mirfak’s magnitude is 1.8, and the comet’s is between 2 and 3 according to most observers. Chances are it’s varying a bit … Observing conditions could not be better for us here in Texas, by the way. The sky is clearer than I’ve seen in awhile. Maybe that’s why I’m so excited about this! The comet is easy to see in city skies …
Deborah
October 29th
Watched the Sox win the WS, then decided to try my luck at finding Comet Holmes for the first time. There it was easily spotted in my 7X30’s so obvious in Persius near Mirfak as predicted. So I trained my 10” Schmidt=Newtonian on the subject for a wonderful view down to 33’ field and studied it several hours. Facinating. It certainly fits the decription of dandelion puffball to a T. I thought I caught a hint of yellow or off white color as well. Look forward to following this during the next weeks. It is in great position overhead.
Tom Leach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
10/29/07
Some say the comet is starting to fade from its outburst. If you see defined pinpoints within the fuzz if you use a telescope or binoculars these are background stars not chunks of the comet.
Over the past few nights, I’ve been watching the moon and the comet. I think some of the coloring of the comet and moon when it is low on the horizon is due to the wildfires out in California. The comet looks fairly pink when it is not very high in the sky. The moon was burnt orange the other night when it rose.
Kelley
Just curious if this comet will be getting brighter or darker in the coming weeks. Is that too difficult to predict, given the strange brightening it experienced a few days ago? Also, how close is it to Earth currently?
Thanks!
adam b … since this comet has behaved so unpredictably so far, there’s just no way to say what it’ll do in the coming weeks. Presumably, it’ll fade. But who knows?
The comet is moving away from the sun now, after being closest to the sun in May 2007. I’m not sure of its exact distance from Earth now … I THINK it’s about 1.5 A.U. from us … that’s 1.5 Earth’s distance from the sun. I thought I’d read that earlier today, but now can’t find it again.
Does anyone have a better estimate of the comet’s distance from us right now?
Deborah
I saw the comet Tuesday night. It was pretty easy to find. The light pollution in Atlanta makes binoculars a must.
Thanks Deborah,
My wife and I went out to a field last night to find it. I thought it would be easy to spot with the naked eye, but in my location it looked like a regular star… so at first I didn’t know where it was. Luckily I brought my binoculars, and after a few sweeps I stopped in my tracks and said “woah!”
In the binoculars, you can DEFINITELY tell it’s not a star… very cool sight to see indeed. I’m so glad we decided to trek out last night, and I encourage others to do the same.
Thanks again!
Really the view of comet Holmes is fantastic. On fullmoon day I just saw a bright fuzzy object in the northeast around 7.15 pm. since i was in hurry, I didn’t bother too much. The next three days, I was in travel. On 28th night as usual I searched something in nightsky watching in website. after seeing earth&sky and sky& telescope, I astonished to know about the arrival of Holmes and rushed to the open upstairs with binoculars(15×20) and viewed the beauty of the yellow holmes. call some of my friends and shared the exiting experience and splendid spreading brightness by conveying the message over phone. For the past two days we are seeint the scenic dazzling appearance of Holmes. I feel the brightness is increasing everyday.Even in the light clouds it is seen wonderfully. Really it is a life experience. Don’t miss the opportunity to view tailess comet.
My english is very poor, althrough I could not under all the artical meanings ,I think who saw that view he or she will feel excited.
“Neat” is all I could say when I found Comet Holmes. Your guide to finding it was right on. Thank you! However, on moonless Atlantic coast of Florida at 2200, it appears very pale and virtually colorless. I expected more yellow hue and brighter. Maybe next time lol. Thanks for the help since I can rarely find anything remotely obscure in the sky.
Is any body doing AVI’s and Registax (Do WEB search to find site)?
Its to cloudy here, maybe sometime next week! West coast USA.
We are hearing from people that the comet has changed over the past week. It’s still bright enough to see with the eye … but it’s getting bigger. Apparently, the cloud around the comet that resulted from the October 23 outburst is now spreading out …
Very cool!
Deborah
On Sunday morning (early about 3 am) Nov. 4 I saw two goldish colored objects in the north western sky they were like long oblongs not moving to the naked eye. I watched for two hours and they never appeared to move. One above the other. A lot of planes (not passenger)were flying around this. Did anyone else see this??? Like two comets with long gold color tails flying one above the other.
Cindy
Having a fascination with the heavens, and a memory of my “backyard sky” while on my deck the other morning around 4am I looked in the sky and saw the most perfect bright ball, next to the most beautiful bright moon. I truly thought I lost my mind, even journaled it. Then to read that it was a comet. I feel so lucky; it is a sign for me. I just feel so lucky to have seen it, especially without first knowing about it. It’s inexplicable.
hi
Found a good star map, got out the binocs, looked where it was supposed to be, and bang there it was in its fuzzy glory, its simplicity made it that much more enticing, had the kids look at it and the dandelion analogy is pretty much a heads on match….astronomy was cool when I was looking at the moon as a kid hoping to see Neil Armstrong/Buzz Aldrin and the LEM and its still cool now!
Just before sunset 11/4, two very helpful gentlemen from the Tucson Amateur Astronomical Society told us (tourists from the east coast visiting Saguaro National Park) just how to find it in the evening sky. When we got back to our hotel and stepped out onto the balcony, there it was! A treat to see in Tucson’s relatively dark sky and a wonderful memory from our visit.
after watching the comet(10:00pm) from mass. I’m woundering if it moves with the stars.
crcorreia, yes and no.
The comet does move with the stars over the course of a single night. But it will move apart from the stars over the course of weeks and months.
This comet is not moving very fast right now. You’ll find it near the star Mirak in the constellation Perseus for some weeks to come.
Best,
Deborah
I easily saw Comet Holmes with the unaided eye last night (Tuesday, Nov. 13), but there’s nothing like binoculars to show the comet as the fuzzball that it really is. If you’re familiar with the W or M-shaped contellation Cassiopeia, you can star-hop from Cassiopeia to the constellation Perseus, where the Comet resides. (Look at the sky chart on the top of this page.) Here’s another sky chart showing Comet Holmes closing in on Perseus’ brightest star, Mirfak. They’ll be quite close together around November 17-19. Remember, the moon is waxing and getting brighter right now, so the sooner you look for Comet Holmes, the better!
Bruce
The wife and I drove down to the Mississippi delta area out into the middle of cotton fields and away from most all man made lighting(very dark).Yes,we were suprised at how clear and blueish the Holmes comet appeared. We could see it with the eye,but we were most pleased when we used our binoculars.What a privlege to observe this beatiful comet.Thank You,Earth&Sky.
Thanks for sharing Louis.
You might want to read an account of another person who loved Comet Holmes through binoculars.
Over the weekend of 10/12th November, I saw the comet quite cleary with out the aid of binoculars while staying with a relative in California. Since my return to Massachusetts I have not been able to find it. What a let down. There is nothing quite like staring up at something so ‘out of this world’
Saw the comet through binoculars in Fla, but then went to NC for a visit and took out a 10’ Dob telescope. Viewed the comet and it was totally awesome. Could not believe how big that “fuzzy snowball” was! Darker skies in NC mountains so get to view a lot more a lot better.