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Comet 31-31

 

9P/ Tempel 1 on April 8th 2005 at 01.54 LT in the 8" F/6.3 S.Cass at 49X. This periodic comet was magnitude 11.5 with a coma diameter of 2.2' and a degree of condensation of 5. The comet was located in the SE sky within Virgo not far from the galaxy rich Coma - Virgo cluster. I observed this comet through on and off periodic hail showers so it was a difficult session. My telescope got a very good soaking and so did I. Several months later the deep impact spacecraft impacted into the side of this comet forming a large crater and large ejection of dust which caused the comet to brighten in magnitude (I missed it due to clouds). The space craft images showed the nucleus to be a very dark irregular world with what looked like two craters seen just before the 'bullet' impacted the comet.