[Cross posted on LJ since this is SO COOL!! ]
For those geeks out there like me who love astronomical events, there’s a great comet viewing opportunity this week: the Holmes comet. It’s naked eye bright (even IN the city!!) in the NE sky to the left of the Pleiades (7 Sisters), in the Perseus constellation. I suggest getting a free Sky and Telescope account to get a customized sky map to help you locate it. http://www.skyandtelescope.com
It’s bright lil sucker! When you find a really bright twinkling object in the NE sky, that’s most likely it. If you have some binoculars, use ’em for a bit of a close up!
Here’s a plain sky map if that will work for you: http://spaceweather.com/images2007/24oct07/skymap_north_holmes.gif
I happened to click on the Astronomy Pic of the day and there’s a big stir about the Holmes comet right now because it had an “outburst” – basically it sort of swelled up. Here’s the pic of what happened over at APOD: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0710/holmes_allen_big.gif
And the explanation of the whole thing: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071026.html
Yes, I’m a GEEK!
Enjoy the comet!