It is not often we have the opportunity to see a comet, over the next couple weeks you will be able to see The Holmes comet. Earlier in the week you would have needed a telescope to see it. Now you can view it without a telescope.
According to Lynn Carroll of the Sunriver Nature Center & Observatory it is not often that a comet will glow 1 million times brighter, but The Holmes Comet has done just that.
The brightness of this comet is about the same as the stars in The Big Dipper. Because of the brightness, it can be seen even with the full moon we are currently experiencing.
The Holmes Comet is orbiting between the path of Mars and Jupiter in the northeastern sky.
Currently the comet looks like a big fuzzball according to Bob Grossfeld who is the director of Sunriver Observatory. This comet does not currently have a tail like the ones you may have seen in the past.
The brightness this comet has shown was recorded 115 years ago, it is not known if it will grow brighter or dimmer over the next couple nights.
The exciting part of this is if the weather holds, you can take a peek at this unusual event at the Sunriver Observatory. Tonight is the last regular night it is open, it will open for a few days around the holidays.
If you are near Sunriver and would like to see The Holmes Comet up close and personal tonight is your night to go. The Sunriver Observatory will be open from 8 to 10 pm tonight you can use the telescopes to view Jupiter before it goes out ofsight for the evening as well as see the different constellations and The Holmes Comet.
Not near Sunriver but want to see what is happening in space? My favorite website is http://www.spaceweather.com/ check it out, there is some pretty cool stuff
How cool is that? I don’t think we have an Observatory around here…now I need to look
Thesa – What a great event to be able to see in Sunriver. I will have to look tonight and see if we have a view here in ABQ. Thanks for the spaceweather link that is a cool looking site! – Ashley
How cool, Thesa! I remember when (Haley’s?) comment was seen in our area. There was a lot of excitement over it, and you still see photos of it over Buffalo Mountain, a very recognizable landmark, on people’s walls.
Pretty cool. When I was a kid I lived in Zion National Park. One year they had some pretty large telescopes brought into the park. I got to see Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. I imagine I felt the same thing that early astronomers felt when they saw other worlds. As you can see, my new blog is finally up.
What a neat picture and a great opportunity to see the comet. Very cool!
I love these almost supernatural events. Shooting stars, comets, eclipses – they all amaze me. -Paula