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Just having a look at Terry's image of 2012 E2. Interesting that it appears a bluish-green colour, probably indicating that it was then mostly the usual cometary gases rather than dust or Na emission. That ties up with the fact that this has been the only Kreutz imaged in SWAN and also supports my thought that it was a very icy fragment from deep within the broken parent fragment. If I identified the background stars correctly, I would very roughly estimate the brightness to have been about mag. 7 - 7.5 at the time. If it was around 9 at discovery, the H10 should have been approximately 12. At that time, it was probably at least as bright as Lovejoy, yet must have been a far smaller object as it seems to have peaked at no more than +1 and did not make it to perihelion. That also supports the suggestion that this was a very icy object whereas Lovejoy was largely covered by an insulating crust (at least, the portion turned toward the Sun pre-T was).
Cheers
David
(PS. Thanks for your kind words Rob ... and for your plug for my Kindle book!)
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