Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Update on comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd)

BBC Television in collaboration with Faulkes Telescope and LCOGT today imaged C/2009 P1. The images have been taken with the 2.0 meters "Faulkes Telescope North" by D. Ó Briain, BBC Television presenter. The BBC were allocated time on FT North (F65) as part of a new Citizen Science project.

We accessed with permission the resultant FITS data and our team processed the V channed with a few algorithms (the R and B fits have the comet a little trailed, so they were not usable for this purpose). We have detected hints of a plume-like feature exiting from the central condensation. This might be related with the sublimation processes within the inner coma/nucleus of the comet (asymmetric gaseous emissions toward the Sun + line of sight effect). It's an effect frequently seen in active comets near enough to be resolved.

Click on the image for a bigger version (details are in the caption)



Click here to see another image taken by Faulkes North on July 29, 2011:

For more information see also our post dated August 2009, with our confirmation image of this object:

http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-comet-c2009-p1-garradd.html

by N. Howes, H. Blyth, G. Sostero and E. Guido

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