Comet 17/P Holmes through my telescope

[SuperDawg2010]

Haha puppy!!

[happyhead64]

this looks TOTALLY real.....VERY VERY cool!!!

[flowerpotproductions]

is it hard to learn astronomy? I wanna be in the astronomy field when i grow up...

Also i need help with this.... I was looking at stars tonight and i saw something like a small star move across the sky at a medium speed.. ( i live in TN ) .. i know its not a airplane and not a sattelite....

it moved slowly...

also what telescope do you use and what do you recommend? i want one thats cheap but also has a good apperture so i can see far away stuff... :]

thanks so much!

[supremeon1]

Dear EskilNaige, VY Canis Majoris "is the largest known star and also one of the most luminous known". The quote is from wikipedia! So, is not just a star, IT IS THE LARGEST CURRENTLY KNOWN STAR... and it's a nice name for a dog :)

[adamski895RS]

ahahah you called your dog canis major!

[supremeon1]

nice name you put to your dog... ha ha :) that's the largest star currently known... nice name :)

[EskilNaige]

Untrue. First of all, Canis Major is a constellation, not a star. You're thinking of Sirius, aka The Dog Star. This is the brightest star as seen from earth, but it's nowhere near the largest star currently known.

[adamski895RS]

VY canis major is a star... not a constellation

[EskilNaige]

You're right, it is. Canis Major (without the "VY") though, is the name if the constellation. It's all up for interpretation, I guess :-)

[GTAking01]

The north star is the largest visible =)

[xoANONiMUSox]

you're awesome!! all your vids and your dogs canis major and minor!! VERY cool

[rednecksseealiens]

I liked how that guy on the other page said it was coming to earth! He must feel stupid now.

[PitbullNL]

because there are so called fog clouds??

[wakeangel2001]

I remember that comet, it was out for a long time, and as I recall at one point its halo grew so large it was bigger than the sun. Did the halo get so large because it never got close enough to the sun for the gas to be blown away in a tail, or does the formation of a tail not have a large effect on the size of the halo?

[NEGUTZA]

Man if i'm wrong ...where are the stars?

[LovelyYTRocks]

HEY.

LIGHT POLUTION.

[alphamone]

im surprised that you havent made up a webcam based attachment for an eyepiece. though you do seem much more skilled at keeping the image in view, because when i tried to do something like that with my telescope pointed at jupiter, i totaly failed at it.

[alphamone]

; ;

why did the northern hemisphere have to get the face on comet, McNaught was cool, bu seeing a comet face on like that with the tail behind it like that would have been even cooler to see.

[shrunkensimon]

"Something happened, some gas, some ice"

Is that your explanation? I don't think you even believe that. You know aswell as i do that the only real explanation is one involving an electrical interaction. If it started emitting X-Rays like past comets, would you concede then?

[dawnrun911]

The reason we can't see the tail is because it is heading right for us. Why do you think the media is so quite about it?, ask yourself that.

[TheBadAstronomer]

Nope. The tail took a while to be seen due to various effects including geometry. Try peddling your conspiracy theories elsewhere.

[valhar2000]

Are you telling me that "the media" would not take advantage of an opportunity to scare viewers? That's all they ever do, even when there is nothing to be scared of!

[dawnrun911]

There is something very strange about this comet, I am amature astronomer and there are two distinct objects when I view this comet. Also, the media have said nothing about this comet!, remember in 1997 when halle bopp was visable in the sky? it was in the media all the time. This time is different, this comet is not going away. Forgive my english, German is my language. But you get my point, yes?.

[valhar2000]

Not really. I don't know if there is anything strange about this comet, but the silence of the media is completely normal: most people are not interested in science, so the media don't talk about these things.

[thegeckoproduction]

@dawnrun911 so any else you want to say 3 years later

[MHIoscar]

hey nice Dog caine... cute..

[LovelyYTRocks]

Canis Major(is).

[widowdesign]

It's the really big yellow guy I'm seeing out there, right? Looking Northeast, & it's 12:47am EST SAt. Nov.18th 2007 right now ~

In the Perseus Constellation?

[andrewgcambridge]

Cool its suddenlly got brighter no 1 knows why?! lol so i cqan see it with out my telescope but , not as well.

5 star

[daheezyfosheezy]

i actually seen this but i didnt know what i was seeing. it was almost as bright as the north star. it took me a min to distinguish which was which. very cool!

[ChrissyoSpace]

Hey Phil,

Great video! I'm in Australia, and my front yard is plagued by trees so I haven't been able to spot Holmes at all. You lucky Northerners! :P What kind of telescope did you use? I'd sure love to get my 10" Newt on it. By the way, I love your dogs name! :)

[RebeccaRawwrr1]

look, my mum sed its guna wipe out all of uk... by nxt yr... in april and only austrailia wnt b hit...?

[ChrissyoSpace]

No, that's not going to happen.

[erebusster]

The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun, has grown to be bigger than the planet Jupiter. The comet lacks the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies but can be seen in the northern sky, in the constellation Perseus, as a fuzzy spot of light about as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper

[supreme704]

theres no tail, and its not exploding... its a planet that has entered our solar system and the "halo" of gas is what we call an atmosphere... hellllllllllooooo wake up!!!

[ChrissyoSpace]

It isn't a planet. It is a comet - a comet that has been known about for quite some time.

[parim31]

excellent narration..i almost felt i was watching the discovery channel ..haha

[pwnslayers]

this just blew up

[nothintorollwith]

Very interesting Phil!

[m3plus2]

Yeah, thanks Phil.

[rnistuk]

Thanks Phil.

[jergsden]

It's amazing alright! Thanks for sharing that Phil!

[hypno2u]

Smoke from the California Fires finally blew out of the way and as I sat in my hot tub last night... I saw the comet... too bad about the moon though, maybe you could find a way to turn that down a bit while the comet is still bright..

[leporidus]

A cloudy october here in Germany too, but watching your video made up for it.

[CousinoMacul]

I never thought I would "hear" Canis Major.

[TrueNorth15]

good shots considering the setup you had.

Canis Major, lol, what else to expect from an astronomer who is also a confessed geek.

[suttsteve]

I should really make an effort to go outside and look for it sometime. I guess it'll have to be soon, though.

[usefkl05]

Thanks for posting this! What a shame it's always cloudy where I live so I cannot see myself.

[Billy7766]

That's awesome, great job in showing this....once or twice during the vid there are little white flashes left to right and these anything other than the video playing up?

[noswonky]

Looked more like Canis Minor to me!

[JamesTCA]

Canis Major...OMG. :)

[theDHC]

space is awesome

[sarcasmosis]

Good shot nonetheless. It's crazy.

[owenbigpinekey]

I was really hoping to see it but it was cloudy and rainy here in wisconsin. your the expert phil but i read that for some strange reason that this comet didnt have a tail which sounded odd to me.