Thursday, February 19, 2009

Coma asymmetry of comet C/2007 N3 (LULIN)

Few hours ago we imaged C/2007 N3 (LULIN) through a narrowband interferential filter, centered in the dust continuum (647nm, FWHM= 10nm). At these wavelengths, what we see is (nearly) only dust. Some image-processing show a curious asymmetry of the coma, as noticed before in some other comets.

Possible features in (about) PA 40 deg and PA 220 deg became visible, as well  (click on the image for a bigger version):



While here you can see an animation of the comet imaged without filter on 18 February 2009 (click on it for a bigger version):



by Giovanni Sostero, Ernesto Guido and Paul Camilleri

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