Comet 17P/Holmes
Sketch and Commentary By Frank McCabe
Comet 17P/Holmes can be seen close to Mirfak (Alpha Persei) this night. The comet remains brighter than 4th magnitude. Under clear, cold skies I was able to sketch the comet without optical aide after spending an hour dark adapting. In order to see the extent of the comet I used averted vision on the comet and on some of the fainter stars. The constellation Cassiopeia is also included in the sketch to the left of Perseus. For sketching I used a piece of white sketching paper 7” x 10” and 2H and HB graphite pencils. After scanning and inverting, I adjusted the star magnitudes from written notes and cleaned up some of the star shapes to round using Microsoft Paint. The sketch took about 30 minutes to complete after starting at 4:00 UT 11/16/2007.
Frank McCabe