From The Astronomical League:
While the world and the scientific community held its breath, after 172 days and 268 million miles of traveling through space, the Deep Impact mission successfully met its goal. The collision between the impactor and Comet Tempel occurred at 1:52 a.m. EDT on July 4. According to press releases, official word of the impact arrived 5 minutes later as an image from the spacecraft's medium resolution camera downlinked to the computer screens of the mission's science team. "What a way to kick off America's Independence Day," said Deep Impact Project Manager Rick Grammier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The challenges of this mission and teamwork that went into making it a success, should make all of us very proud."
But the Deep Impact scientists weren't the only ones monitoring the action. In Nashville, Tennessee at Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory a group of partners - members of the ISS-AT team - were coordinating for observations of their own. A.G. Kasselberg was linked into the obseravtory at Arizona Sky Village making sure everything would run smoothly. The team was readying to capture the event live and broadcast it via the internet for the world to share.
Terry Mann, Vice President of the Astronomical League, was present to co-chair the ceremonies with Rocky Alvey, Superintendent of Dyer Observatory and Dr. Bob O'Dell gave a presentation on the nature of comets and the importance of understanding their structure. A.G. Kasselberg was keeping an eye on the comet. Caught in action, we see from the left : A.G Kasselberg, Rocky Alvey, Terry Mann and Dr. Robert O'Dell as the opening of the webcast begins.
Although the comet was not visible from Nashville's Dyer Observatory, plans were to use a remote telescope owned by the Astronomical League stationed at Portal, Arizona's Sky Village. The remote scope, a 14" Celestron mounted on an Astro-Physics 1200 GTO mount, was used to capture several hundred images throughout the event. In Arizona, Tempel 1 was only 20 degrees above the western horizon at sunset. At the time of impact, it was only 15 degrees above the horizon. Although such a low elevation is not normally a good medium for capturing images, the telescope had no trouble picking up a brightness increase of 2 magnitudes at the time of impact with its SBIG ST-9 CCD camera using MaxIm DL and ACP Observatory Control Software.
When the incredible moment arrived, the team was hard at work producing the Deep Impact Webcast. On the left, A.G. Kasselberg is operating the telescope. Centerally located, Rocky Alvey participates and Terry Mann is right on hand to watch the event. "We could see the live imaging as impact happened. About ten people out of the audience came to our computers to watch our telescope image. I was watching our screen with Dr. A.G. Kasselberg, he was the one doing the imaging that night. We were hoping to see exactly what we saw." Also in attendance was an audience of around fifty guests and eyes were both on the computer screens and on the live broadcast from NASA TV. Says Mann, "A couple of the people out of the audience were sitting in our chairs. They realized we were watching over their shoulders and started to jump up. We told them to stay. They were having as good of a time as we were!"Thanks to an incredible amount of media coverage, people all over the world were able to share in the event both virtually and via the NASA television broadcast. At Dyer Observatory, the crew and audience were also watching. As Mann comments, "I kept looking at NASA TV, it was on the opposite end of our workstation. Then back at our monitor. It was so exciting to see something almost as it happened. We saw it as close to real time as we possibly could. Everyone was amazed at what we were seeing on NASA TV and on our monitor. NASA gave us a front row seat, The ISS-AT gave us our own live pictures. It was amazing!" From the remote telescope, data began pouring in along with images. What was it like to watch - even from a remote telescope? As Terry says, "We stood there and said, WOW!! Look at the brightening... I see it!"
Back at NASA, the press reports the probe generated an intense flash of light, caught by the two cameras on the Deep Impact science vessel. Scientists theorize the 820-pound impactor vaporized deep below the comet's surface when the two collided at a speed of 23,000 miles per hour. "You can not help but get a big flash when objects meet at 23,000 miles per hour," said Deep Impact co-investigator Dr. Pete Schultz of Brown University, Providence, R.I. "The heat produced by impact was at least several thousand kelvin and at that extreme temperature just about any material begins to glow. Essentially, we generated our own incandescent photo flash for less than a second." But, the flash created by the impact was just one of the visual surprises that confronted the Deep Impact team. Preliminary assessment of the images and data downlinked from the flyby spacecraft have provided an amazing glimpse into the life of a comet. "They say a picture can speak a thousand words," said Deep Impact Project Manager Rick Grammier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "But when you take a look at some of the ones we captured in the early morning hours of July 4, 2005 I think you can write a whole encyclopedia."
Richard Berry was in charge of data analysis, he also put together the composite picture. A.G. Kasselberg had taken 270 images in a 2-1/2 hours period, one image was processed every 36 seconds, with each exposure at 30 seconds. The composite image shown starts with frame 010 (taken at 04:21:28 UT) and shows every 10th image, ending at image 260 (06:52:25 UT). The images in the composite are spaced 6 minutes apart. Deep Impact struck the comet at frame 160. In the photometric data, you see an immediate jump of 0.3 magnitudes in frame 161. The rise in brightness continued as long as the team was able to observe. Thanks to Sonicfoundry, and Ron Horne of Technical Innovation, the night's activities were streamed to several hundred participants. A few thousand more tried to watch the webcast. but found the website with an error message. The website was overloaded with hits!
While the Deep Impact team at NASA began working their data, the information that came through the Astronomical League's remote scope began investigations of the impact's lightcurve The data was sent to Richard Berry for examination. When completed, the information turns into a graph which shows light intensity as a function of time. This valuable data will help astronomers learn more about a comet's surface composition and reflective properties. Says Mann, "We couldn't see the light curve, but what we could see was the live imaging as impact happened." The Deep Impact mission's success will help to provide a glimpse beneath the surface of a comet, unchanged since the solar system's formation. 
As you can see from this question and and answer session at Dyer Observatory during the Deep Impact webcast, the world is fascinated with the frozen space vagabonds known as comets. Our studies have shown they contain the basic organic chemistry that could very well have began life on our planet. Our deepest thanks and sincere appreciation go once again to Arizona Sky Village, DC 3 Dreams SP, Diffraction Limited, The ISS-AT Telescope Alpha Team, Sonicfoundry, Sky and Telescope Magazine, Technical Innovation, Astro-Physics, Inc., Santa Barbara Instruments Group, The Astronomical League, the Dyer Observatory and Vanderbilt University Division of Public Affairs for providing the world internet access to this history making event, and a quicktime movie of the impact will soon be available here. Says Mann, "Our data went on the Deep Impact Small Telescope Observer's Results". The information collected by the team will be added to the science data collected by NASA. In Terry's words, "That is so cool!!!"And the rest of the world agrees.