Late Fall 2007

Hey Kids!

Here's the new edition of the M111 "ONLINE."   Fall, so far, has been a great season:  decent weather, beautiful leaves, and an absolutely awesome comet!  Yes, Exploding Comet 17P/Holmes is one of the  strangest things ever seen by astronomers - professional and amateurs alike.  More details about this comet to follow in this edition of M111.

Then again, there was also the excitement of Hidden Hollow '07.  It was a cool, crisp weekend and the skies were a bit marginal, but it was a terrific convention.  Again, we have more details and pictures coming...

The observatory also had some visitors from Pana, Illinois.  Neil Maron, his son and his granddaughter visited Warren Rupp on October 20, 2007.  Want to see his pictures?  Check out his website at http://neil.maron.googlepages.com/mypicturesofwarrenruppobservatory .

We also had some club members who received some Astronomical League awards...and we'd like to congratulate them!  As well as to encourage some others to do some special observing (and documentation) and receive AL awards.  Read further to find out who received what.

Barb Hubal

Comet 17P/Holmes

 Spaceweather.com reported on 24 Oct 07 that astronomers in Japan, Persia and Europe reported that Comet 17P/Holmes was undergoing a spectacular eruption.  The comet was 17th magnitude, until  the 23rd of October.  Then it spectacularly (and unexpectedly) brightened to a 2.5 magnitude fuzzy ball in the constellation Perseus.  By the 28th, it was larger than the planet Jupiter.  It is visible to the naked eye, and looks like a roughly spherical yellow core with a dimmer, greenish outer core.  As of Oct. 31st, no tail has been seen.

What would make a comet explode in this fashion? Actually, a better question is, what would make a comet explode twice in this fashion? This is the second time Comet 17P/Holmes has erupted. The first was in 1892, an outburst that led to the comet's discovery by British astronomer Edwin Holmes.

No one quite knows why it exploded.  The answer may be sinkholes. There is growing evidence that some comets and asteroids may have a porous internal structure akin to Swiss cheese. Possibly one of the "holes" suddenly collapsed, exposing many square kilometers of fresh cometary ice to sunlight for the first time. A flurry of sublimation would ensue with mega-jets of dusty gas emerging from the sinkhole to create a cloud around the comet much as we see now.

Because no one can see the comet's nucleus--it is small, far away and hidden inside a Jupiter-sized debris cloud--this "explanation" is no more than conjecture. The true events at the core of Comet Holmes remain unknown.

-  information and photos taken from http://www.spaceweather.com (Oct 24-Nov14th)

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11/14/07 Update

Wow!  The comet's really moved.  It's now very close to Alpha Persei (also known as Mirfak or Algenib)- both could be seen in the club's 8" dob using a 40mm eyepiece.  The comet's nucleus is much more diffuse now, and a tail is beginning to form, although it appears short and almost as wide as the comet's nucleus.

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11/19/07 Update

Well, the comet is still a great target for binoculars (whenever the clouds permit viewing, which isn't often in November).  Holmes has faded relatively little in terms of astronomers' brightness scale, where it now hovers near magnitude 3. But its light now spreads over a larger area, so its apparent brightness has declined substantially.

Check out more about the comet at astronomy.com:  click here!