Hey guys
Yup...the pom papers made a pigs ear out of the whole story...thankfully physics.org and the proper news got it pretty close to spot on
I was imaging C/2007 Q3 from home the weekend before with the TMB setup I have and noticed that the tail had changed, so, having some time booked on FT for my lunch break (i typically get 30 mins on Faulkes, which is more than enough with a 2m scope and being in my lunch break my boss is not an issue (he's not anyway, as he's a cambridge graduate and into this stuff too) I pointed it at the comet, and within 10 minutes had noticed that the nucleus had split. Informed the BAA and IAU via email within the hour, and now just waiting. Pic Du MIDI also imaged it a day or so earlier, but didn't publish or go live with their results...so it's like the "La Verrier/Couch Adams" story on Neptune..
If you want the real press release info, try the Faulkes Website
http://faulkes-telescope.com/news/2284
I contacted Australian S&T on the day as well, as the comet was detected down with you guys at Siding, and have spoken to Donna Burton about it. Hoping that a major observatory will image, as I think I picked up a third fragment (images and thread on SGL forum in the UK)
The news has gone nuts, been interviewed by multiple radio and newspapers, but not the Daily Mail, whose story just went out of control adding all sorts of rubbish to the facts (typical pommy stuff I agree)
Anyway...thanks guys...and the moral here is keep looking at those comets...stuff like this does happen more often than you think
