[BAA Comets] Paper on "Major Outburst and Splitting of Long-Period Comet C/2015 ER61 (Pan-STARRS)"

[Richard Miles]

Thanks Jeremy - a very comprehensive write-up but with a rather selective 
comparison with other outbursting comets, it seems. The outburst referred to 
was on 2017 April so is very recent and occurred just 36 days or so before 
perihelion (orbital period = 8.6 yr, q=1.0 au) so is a classic case of 
thermal stresses resulting in fragmentation close to perihelion.

Good to see BAA member, Erik Bryssinck being duly acknowledged following his 
discovery of the discrete fragment that was shed by its outburst. Lots of 
other amateur comet observations are referred to including Kevin Hills, Paul 
Camilleri and Michael Mattiazzo to name but a few plus a very nice set of 
colour images by Gerald Rhemann showing the comet before and after its 
outburst.

With the latest 5-mag outburst of Comet 174P, obserrvers should be watchful 
for the appearance of a long-lived fragment from that event, given it has 
been the most intense outburst since this object was discovered in 2000. 
However, the separation velocity if such a fragment exists will be of the 
order of m/s and so it may be quite a while before such a fragment appears.

Richard Miles


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeremy Shears" <bunburyobservatory at hotmail.com>
To: <comets-disc at lists.britastro.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2017 11:55 AM
Subject: [BAA Comets] Paper on "Major Outburst and Splitting of Long-Period 
Comet C/2015 ER61 (Pan-STARRS)"


> by Zdenek Sekanina
>
> https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03197
>
>
> includes amateur observations
>
>
> Jeremy
> _______________________________________________
> Comets-disc mailing list
> Comets-disc at lists.britastro.org
> http://lists.britastro.org/mailman/listinfo/comets-disc
>