Sunday, May 25, 2008

Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke

Prompted by a comment published on the newsgroup [Comets-ml] about a possible outburst of comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke detected by G. Muler, on 2008, May 23, we performed some follow-up of this object. Stacking of 30 unfiltered exposures, 60 seconds each, obtained remotely from Mayhill (NM) on 2008, May 25.2 through a 0.25-m, f/3.4 reflector + CCD, show that 7P/Pons-Winnecke currently has a diffuse coma nearly 25 arcsec in diameter, with a sharp central condensation.

Total magnitude m1 was measured to be R= 15.9. Preliminary afrho calculation provides a rather flat trend, with an average value of 30 +/- 5 cm.


by Ernesto Guido & Giovanni Sostero

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