alright guys I measured it and heres what I got ..
[link to www.nasa.gov]

the arc minute on the SWIFT image was 60 mm [millimeters] and the comet itself [nucleus, no coma] was 9 mm

so its one arc second per milimeter or 9 arc seconds

so using this NASA MATH DONE ON COMET ENCKE

[link to docs.google.com (secure)]

THEY CONCLUDE..[im posting this so you can check mymath too :)]

problem 5
. the comet in the math lesson was 114 million KM away and at that distance each arc minute was 33,000 km

so here it states on the NASA article
[link to www.sen.com]


Swift's observations in January were made at a distance of 604 million kilometres (375 million miles) from Earth

??cross mutiply??

114,000,000 604,000,000
--- ---
33,000 x

or 19932000000000 = 114,000,000 [X]


X = 174842.10526315789473684210526316 KM PER ARC MINUTE AND I MEASURED IT FROM THE PHOTO AT 9 MM OUT OF 60


so at .15 arc minute we get a maximum measured value of

174,842 [times] 0.15

to get a whopping 26226.315789473684210526315789465

or an apparent measured diameter of

26,226 KM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


OK DID I DO IT RIGHT...measured it onscreen with my Silva ranger!!!


so comet diameter of 26,226 km !!!!!!

or 5km in the article ?


if i made a mistake please point it out..