LCO Astronomy highlights: COMET P/2009 Q1 (HILL)

La Cañada Observatory, is an initiative by Juan Lacruz, the observatory started astrometric operations in the summer of 2002, it is registered as station J87 in the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.

The Observatory also participates in the studies on minor bodies promoted by the Group on Meteorites, Minor Bodies, and Planetary Sciences of the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC).

Este obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 2.5 España.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

COMET P/2009 Q1 (HILL)

On Aug. 27 R. E. Hill with the Catalina Sky Survey 0.68-m Schmidt found this diffuse comet with no clear condensation and a 12"-15" coma with a broad, diffuse tail about 20" long in p.a. 250 deg. The object was then included in the neo confirmation page (NEOCP) for other observatories to confirm and follow up.

On Aug. 29.0, I stacked twenty 2-min images to find the object very diffuse with a round coma of size 12" and a tail 20" long in p.a. 249 deg.

This (above) is a cropped non-zoomed stack composition of 29 images of 2 minutes each taken with the .40m Ritchey-Chretien F10 + CCD at La Cañada, the North is up and the East left.

Above, zoom 4x

References :

MPEC 2009-Q67
IAUC 9067 P/2009 Q1(suscribers)
Remanzacco observatory report

This Jupiter family comet has a period about 13 years.