Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann
From SkyInsight
Archive of Dennis Persyk's Comet 73P Pages
© 2006 Dennis Persyk
Original source (Dennis' web site): http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm
2006 Apr 23 - 73P B Split Nucleus Movie
Animation spanning seven 6-minute frames. During the 42 minute
period 73P-B traversed 1.8 arc minutes. The stars are elongated
because I was guiding on the comet head(s).
2006 Apr 23 - 73P-B Split Nucleus
73P-B Split Nucleus
 |
 |
 |
||||
| Comet head in gray scale. |
Isophotes -- lines of constant intensity, akin to contour lines on a topographical map. Note the stars that distort the smooth contours. | Color-intensity map. Each color represents a different intensity. |
|
Scope: |
Takahashi E160 at f/3.3 |
|||
|
Image: |
10 x
6minutes, guided with MX-716 on NP-101, binned 1x1; resampled 2x; SXV-H9 camera on loan from Jeff Terry http://mrmac.mr.aps.anl.gov/~astronut/"> http://mrmac.mr.aps.anl.gov/~astronut/ . Acquired with AstroArt 3.0. Processing MaximDL, ImagesPlus, and Astroart 3.0. |
|||
|
Filters: |
None | |||
|
Conditions: |
20.03 mags/sq arc second at zenith ~ Bortle 5 ~ 5.6-5.9 VLM as measured with http://unihedron.com/projects/darksky/Sky Quality Meter |
|||
|
Mount: |
AP1200GTO |
|||
|
Comment: |
This is the first time I was successful in guiding on
a comet head. Usually the comet runs into a star and the autoguider
gets lost. I was very fortunate tonight that there were no stars brighter
than magnitude 15 in path of fragment B. The fragment has a relative motion
2.5 arc seconds per minute. I normally would have been able to take
only 30 second unguided exposures to avoid blur.
|
 |
 |
||||
| This extreme magnification
illustrates the center-to-center separation of the two nuclei of 16 arc seconds. |
The line profile through
the nuclei illustrates the two distinct peaks. |
 |
 |
|||
| Orbit details from http://www.quantumhyperspace.com/Astronomy/OrbitViewer/index.jsp |
|
View from http://www.skymap.com/ showing comet fragments B, C and G in Bootes. Planetarium programs are notorious for incorrect comet magnitudes. |
Thanks for looking and for feedback.</p>
Email comments appreciated at href="mailto:[email protected]"
© 2006 Dennis Persyk
