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On the evening of Nov. 6, 1892, amateur astronomer Edwin Holmes was scanning the night sky above his backyard in England when he spotted something no one had ever seen before: an exploding comet. One hundred and fifteen years later, Comet 17P/Holmes is exploding again.

This image of Comet 17P Holmes was taken from Ft. Davis on 2-8-08 with a Takahashi FS-128 with a focal reducer. It is about 60' by 45' and is slightly brighter toward the nucleus. 

Comet Linear C/2006 VZ-13 Animation

This comet was found on images obtained using the SWAN camera aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft during the period of June 20 to July 5. The comet became an easy evening sky object shortly before mid-October and experienced a very noticeable outburst in brightness on the night of October 23/24. The comet's visual magnitude increased to  4.5, which made it an easy naked-eye object for observers with dark skies

On July 4, 2005 the Deep Impact Mission crashed into Comet Temple 1. This is Photometry of the impact. Each image is a 1 min. exposure starting 5 min. before impact and 17 min. after impact. You can see on the graph time of impact and watch the comet brighten for the next 17 min.

Comet C/2001-Q4 taken from Ft. Davis on July 17, 2004. Image taken with the Tak. FS-128 and the ST-8XE.

Comet C/2003-K4 taken from Ft. Davis, Texas on July 16, 2004

Comet Bradfield

This shot of  Comet Linear (C/2002 T7) was taken from Ft. Davis on 1-21-04. Image was taken with a Takahashi FSQ and the SBIG ST-8E. This is a 5 minute exposure.  Don Pierce quotes " Those delicate streamers are tail rays, thin bundles of ionized particles and part of the ion or gas tail. This is the best image I have seen so far."

Comet-Hyakutake  passing in front of the handle stars of the big dipper. Taken on March 25,1996 on closest approach, only 0.1 AU or about 15 million km away. What a sight, the pale blue tail stretched over 60 deg. across the sky.

Comet-Hale-Bopp was another beautiful comet. Here it is passing in front of M-35. It had two tails, a white dust tail and a blue ion tail. This was the most photographed comet in history.

Comet-Hyakutake with the tail starting to brake away.

Comet Hale-Bopp passing close to the North American Nebula.

Comet Hale-Bopp passing in front of the Double Cluster in Perseus.

Comet Ikeya-Zhang was another pretty comet photographed in April of 2002.

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