NOV 5, 2007 - Comet Holmes Photo Gallery introduces the celestial sensation du jour, Comet17P/Holmes. Comet Holmes burst into the news (literally) during the last week of October, when it blew up. It went from a 17th magnitude telescope-only object to a magnitude 2.5 naked eye object, a luminosity increase of roughly a million-fold. Holmes is hardly your garden variety comet: no tail, just a giant exploding head. Besides marveling at the many striking images you'll find at Comet Holmes Photo Gallery, you can also see a sky map showing where to look to see it for yourself (in the northeast, after sunset, in the constellation Perseus); plus there's an ephemeris providing equatorial coordinates (right ascension and declination) which you can use to figure out where Comet Holmes is in your horoscope. (You'll need to convert the RA/declination coordinates to ecliptic longitude to work with a conventional horoscope, of course.) Got anything in, or in major aspect to, early Gemini? Just bear in mind that Comet Holmes is way off the ecliptic plane . . .
