EXTINCTION IN THE COMA OF COMET 17P/HOLMES

On 2007 October 29, the outbursting comet 17P/Holmes passed within 0 ''.79 of a background star. We recorded the event using optical, narrowband photometry and detect a 3%-4% dip in stellar brightness bracketing the time of closest approach to the comet nucleus. The detected dimming implies an optical depth tau approximate to 0.04 at 1 ''.5 from the nucleus and an optical depth toward the nucleus center tau(n) < 13.3. At the time of our observations, the coma was optically thick only within rho less than or similar to 0 ''.01 from the nucleus. By combining the measured extinction and the scattered light from the coma, we estimate a dust red albedo p(d) = 0.006 +/- 0.002 at alpha = 16 degrees phase angle. Our measurements place the most stringent constraints on the extinction optical depth of any cometary coma.