Comet 17P/Holmes has its first strong outburst for >6 years

[Richard Miles]

I was wanting to post a news item today on the BAA’s frontpage re. this latest discovery of an outburst by the mother of all outbursting comets, Comet 17P/Holmes, but Jeremy Shears has beaten me to it with the news of a very rare nova-like eruption of RS Ophiuchi, the first since 2006.

I had better let the RS Oph story stay there for the next couple of days or else our variable star colleagues may be upset. It’ll give me time to prepare the images, etc.

Richard

[Nick James]

Here’s an image taken this morning (Aug 10) from Chelmsford. It is around mag 16.1 in a 9.2 arcsec aperture. My most recent previous image was July 29 when it was 17.1.

[Lars Lindhard]

I guess there is a bit more “Breaking news!” over a mag 5 nova than a mag 16 comet…  🙂

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