Comet Holmes taken 28 October at the prime focus of 8.5" f6 reflector with an Olympus E400 DSLR with 40 seconds exposure (ASA set to 400). Image Steve Ringwood.

Nine days after its spectacular cosmic display, Comet 17P/Holmes continues to intrigue and delight both amateur and professional astronomers alike. Dr Brian Marsden of the Harvard Smithsonian's Minor Planet Center, USA, says, "some observers have confused it with a nova. We've had at least two reports of a new star!"

The comet, which unexpectedly brightened by a million times on Wednesday 24 October, was showing a subtle feature which many thought could be a tail. Images were taken by graduate student Sandie Bouchard and assistant Bernard Malenfant in visible and infrared wavelengths at the Mont Megantic Observatory, Canada. However, the feature is intriguing because it doesn't seem point directly away from the Sun, as all cometary tails should. However, Dr Pierre Bastien of the University of Montreal who worked with the Mont Megantic data may have a simple explanation. "The tail is pointing mostly away from us. This is why it is looks relatively short as seen from Earth. But it does not point exactly away from us, there is a small deviation from our line of sight." In other words, the Earth is currently just off the Sun-comet line, so has an oblique view of the tail, albeit an extreme one.

The path of 17P/Holmes from August to January. It passes close to Mirfak (alpha Persei) and Algol, and if it is still reasonably bright around those times they should provide a stunning sight. AN graphic by Greg Smye-Rumsby.

17P/Holmes, along with its fuzzy coma is now 11 arcminutes in diameter and expanding still further. That is one-third the size of the full moon on the sky. The comet's apparent magnitude doesn't seem to have changed very much since Thursday 25 October. It is past perihelion and is 370 million kilometres away from the Sun. It's 242 million kilometers from Earth and as it continues to move away in the coming weeks it will get fainter and fainter, meaning that anyone wishing to observe this record-breaking comet in the constellation Perseus should do so now, before it fades.