[BAA Comets] C/2017 E4 (Lovejoy) fading

Nick James ndj at nickdjames.com
Wed Apr 19 08:19:12 BST 2017


Johan,

I imaged the comet this morning in a brightening sky and it has 
definitely faded significantly since my last observation.

https://www.britastro.org/node/9942

There is no longer any starlike centre and the coma is spead out in a 
line around 30 arcsec long. This makes astrometry very difficult. It 
looks to me as though the nucleus is breaking up as the comet approaches 
perihelion.

Nick.

On 19/04/2017 08:11, Johan Warell wrote:
> Observed comet Lovejoy early this morning, now about 5 degrees south of
> M31. It was fainter and more diffuse than I expected and somewhat of a
> disappointment. I estimated mag 9.5, dia 3 and DC 4 with 40x100 binos on a
> clear and dark (NELM 6.6) sky, just before moonrise. It was at a low (10
> degrees) altitude which made the estimate somewhat uncertain.
>
> There was nine-day lapse of observations on COBS, at that time it was about
> mag 7.0. Is this comet fading faster than expected?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Johan
>
> Lindby Obs (K60)
> Skurup, Sweden
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