Did I see Holmes this morning ?

This morning ( 16-11-07 ) at 5.30am I looked out of my window and saw quite a large, bright ball of light. I live in England, near Birmingham and I was looking to the east. I haven't seen Holmes before so I'm unsure if it was this or not. Is it possible that it was Holmes that I saw?

I took a picture of the light on my phone. The picture looks nothing like what I saw. In the picture you can see 2 distinct balls of light and also a small blue "speck" above and to the right of the lights. I thought the blue speck may be some kind of mistake, but every time I moved my phone to look at the lights the blue speck appeared in the same place in the picture.
For the moment I can't post the picture because, firstly, I don't really know how to and secondly, the software that comes with the phone ( samsung ) messed up all my mp3, mpeg files last time I installed it.

I'm pretty convinced it was Holmes and the weird picture is due to the quality of the phone camera ( even though its a good one, you can't beat a proper camera ). Can anyone let me know if Holmes would've been in that area at that time ?

Thanks all

Your phone may not be able to image it as it is pretty diffuse and dim. Go to spaceweather.com for pics and star charts of the comet. It is quite visible to the naked eye as a fuzzball and looks very nice in binoculars....

reply to post by RedEyes


Hi RedEyes,

I live in Leicester and I was observing the comet last night. It is high up in the constellation perseus at the moment. Was this ball of light low down on the horizon or high in the sky?

The comet is quite dim to the naked eye, and looks like a dim fuzzy patch. Binoculars show it well as do telescopes at ~ 40x power.

Don't forget there are a couple of bright planets out and about that time of morning. Venus is particularly bright at them moment!

Hope this helps,

-Paul.

I concur with timelike. It sounds like you are seeing Venus. The comet is many times dimmer, and no where near as eye catching.

The "small blue speck" that you are seeing sounds like a "hot pixel" in your phone's sensor, which would account for why it is always in the same place.

reply to post by RedEyes


Very likely NOT Holmes. It's quite diffuse now and not very bright. It's in the constellation Perseus, which is tough to see in the early morning. Can you identify where in the sky you were looking? If you were looking to the East, you saw Venus, which is often much brighter than anyone expects.

UofCinLA

Thanks for the reply, I will check out that site as soon as I can.

timelike

Hey timelike, thanks for your response. I would say the light I saw was about 45 degrees in the air. It did look quite fuzzy, but it wasn't dim it was quite large and bright.
It seems like it could have been Venus I'm just amazed how bright and big it looked.

C.H.U.D.

Thanks C.H.U.D. yeah it does sound like Venus. I think there is confusion about the "small blue speck". I couldn't see the blue speck with the naked eye, and the speck doesn't appear in the same place in EVERY photo.
When I took the photo of the light I noticed the blue speck on it then when I aimed my phone at the light again I could see the blue speck in the viewer ( in basically the exact same place ).
This seems to suggest that the "blue speck" was physically there, but I couldn't see it with the naked eye. I don't know if that's possible but thats what happened.

disownedsky

Thanks for your reply. I WAS looking to the East so it sounds like it was Venus. I'm just amazed how bright and large it was, it was larger and brighter than anything I expected to see in the sky which is why I started this thread.


Thanks all