comet watching
Comet Holmes can be seen with the naked eye.
Details here:
Sky and Telescope Magazine
How to find the comet:
Find Cassiopeia ("the Big W"). One part of the W is an equilateral
triangle; the other is a, er, not-equilateral triangle.
Two of the stars in the no-equilateral triangle are stacked vertically
(in the evening). Follow them down to a really bright star.
That's Mirphak, the brightest star in Perseus.
Continue down and you may see a dim star. Now track left, and you
come to a bright star.... and that bright star is the comet.
Mirphak, the dim star, and the comet, form a 30-60-90 triangle. The
comet and Mirphak form the hypoteneuse and the short side of the
triangle is towards the ground.
If you have a decent pair of binoculars, the comet is very clearly
not-a-star: it's a very bright fuzzy dot. (The tail isn't long
because it's pointed away from us.)
Another approach: if you have a program such as Stellarium (free:
http://www.stellarium.org/) then punch in a search for "HP 18061", a
very very dim star that's in pretty much the right location.
Details here:
Sky and Telescope Magazine
How to find the comet:
Find Cassiopeia ("the Big W"). One part of the W is an equilateral
triangle; the other is a, er, not-equilateral triangle.
Two of the stars in the no-equilateral triangle are stacked vertically
(in the evening). Follow them down to a really bright star.
That's Mirphak, the brightest star in Perseus.
Continue down and you may see a dim star. Now track left, and you
come to a bright star.... and that bright star is the comet.
Mirphak, the dim star, and the comet, form a 30-60-90 triangle. The
comet and Mirphak form the hypoteneuse and the short side of the
triangle is towards the ground.
If you have a decent pair of binoculars, the comet is very clearly
not-a-star: it's a very bright fuzzy dot. (The tail isn't long
because it's pointed away from us.)
Another approach: if you have a program such as Stellarium (free:
http://www.stellarium.org/) then punch in a search for "HP 18061", a
very very dim star that's in pretty much the right location.