[BAA Comets] 289P/Blanpain

[Nick James]

Morning all,

This comet has caused a lot of comment this year since the MPC published 
magnitude parameters which implied that it would be quite bright but, in 
fact, it was very faint. The current MPC params are currently predicting 
mag 3.8 for last night. JPL Horizons is predicting 22.0 so quite a large 
difference!

I noticed that on COBS a visual observer has been reporting the comet to 
be around mag 13 but recent images from my observatory show nothing to 
mag 20. The current COBS data is here:

https://www.cobs.si/analysis2?plot_type=0&end_date=2020/03/26%2000:00&col=comet_id&obs_type=0&id=875&start_date=2020/01/01%2000:00

The last image we have showing this comet in the BAA archive is on 2020 
Feb 6 when it was around 18.5. This matches the Kevin Hills data in COBS 
for Feb 12.

Has anyone imaged this comet in the last month? Is there anything that 
could explain the visual observation other than mis-identification?

Nick.