[BAA Comets] Post-perihelion fragmentation of 168P/Hergenrother

[denis buczynski]

I was also able to image this comet last night, in a dark sky (first with moon out of sky for some 
time) and took a set of 20x30s in r band filter to see if the reported fragmentation was visible yet 
at 2"/pixel resolution I use with my C14/ST9XE combination. I could not detect any fragment with the 
processing I used (stacking and log stretch). I wonder if a drift rate can be calculated fro the 
fragment from the large telescope images which would give us an indication when it should be 
possible for observers using the size of telescope we employ to image the main fragment? I will 
continue to image this active comet. I have placed all the images submitted to the Comet Section on 
the Comet Gallery on the BAA Website.
Direct links to the images I took last night are at:

http://britastro.org/baa/index.php?view=detail&id=646&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=200


http://britastro.org/baa/index.php?view=detail&id=645&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=200


Denis Buczynski
Secretary Comet Section
British Astronomical Association

-----Original Message----- 
From: Nick James
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 7:49 AM
To: BAA Comets discussion list
Subject: Re: [BAA Comets] Post-perihelion fragmentation of 168P/Hergenrother

I had a good opportunity to take some images of 168P last night in
transparent skies using the relatively small (C11) telescope in my back
garden. It is interesting to compare the results with those obtained
with much larger telescopes.

The resulting image is here:

http://www.nickdjames.com/Comets/168p_20121101_ndj.jpg

FWHM was 3".5 which is not bad for here but doesn't really compare well
to the 1".5 or less using the bigger scopes on mountains. There's no
sign of the fragment (as expected at this resolution) but the rotational
gradient does show flow down the near tail.

This is definitely a comet that is worth keeping under observation.

Nick.
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