Could anyone identify this thing, a star or what, that i see late in november 2007 to january2008?

Question

I see this, maybe at late november it is like a dusty image, above the south east asia,..at 11pm

at first look you may say that it is like a star, but as the day goes by,. it is changing its shape... like an exploding star.... and it is also moving with respect to the star cluster.. and at the month of january it is not visible at all to the naked eye. for it look likes cloud anymore....

can someone identify this...

for I really observe this time by time.

And one thing that I dont understand..is its moving fast at the star cluster like as fast as jupiter move at the stars cluster....

Answer 1

It's hard to say exactly.  Is it there every year?  How big is it?  Have you checked a star map?  It kinda sounds like the star cluster known as the Pleiades.  Or maybe you were watching a comet a few years ago?  Your last statement about it moving didn't make much sense to me.

Answer 2

I wonder if you are refering to Comet 17P/Holmes.  It went into an amazing outburst in late October 2007 and was visible to the naked eye for some months after that.  Various photos showed it looking like a great cosmic jellyfish.  The visible fuzzball was similar to the angular size of the Moon.  The comet spent much of that time in the constellation Perseus, reasonably close to a well-known star cluster.  It would have shifted position relative to the cluster and the other stars in Perseus from night to night.

Where in South-East Asia are you located?  From Melbourne Australia it barely rose above the northern horizon but I imagine that anywhere in the region from Indonesia northward it would have been quite prominent.

Check out some of the pictures available at the link I provided to Seiichi Yoshida's page on the comet.