[BAA Comets] C/2015V2 tail puzzle

Peter Carson petercarson100 at gmail.com
Mon May 29 14:17:24 BST 2017


Hi All,
I’m puzzled by the appearance of C/2015V2 Johnson’s “anti-tail”. I imaged it under reasonable conditions from my home location on Saturday night 2017 May 27th. See my image here http://www.astromania.co.uk/2015V2_20170527_2329_PCarson.jpg
It shows a fairly broad anti tail similar to some other recent images I’ve seen. However I’ve also seen a few good quality images from dark sites where the anti tail is very narrow and straight. 
Is the anti tail a gas tail or is it part of the dust tail we are viewing from a different angle or is it both?
I imaged C/2015V2 the previous night with a different instrument and the tails had a similar appearance. See that image here http://www.astromania.co.uk/2015V2_20170526_0035_PCarson.jpg
Whatever is causing its appearance it looks good.
All the best
Peter Carson


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