Comet Lemmon, disconnected tail?

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,

Here's comet Lemmon from last night 07/02/2013, I was lucky to get it with cloud allowing an hour window.

I used the ED80 again without the baader fringe killer, hoping to get more faint tail. I was surprised once the images started coming up to see the tail seems to be disconnected, with a knot half way along the tail. The disconnected section seems to be moving of in a different direction.

Not sure whats going on here??

I've supplied two images, the stacked image and a false colour single frame too show a little more detail.

This comet sure is interesting!
ED80, field flattener,
Unmodded Canon 1100D plus cooler box.
HEQ Pro 5 mount.


Cheers,

Justin.

[WingnutR32]

Could it be some kind of parallax error?

Perhaps the two tails are in line with each other making it look like one tail with a blip in the middle?

[JohnG]

Got a similar result last night (070213) myself.

Inverted view is heavily stretched.

Cheers

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi Sam,

Hmm don't know, need a comet expert.

Hoping someone with higher resolution gear imaged it last night. This would help sort things out.

Cheers,

Justin.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks John!

Your image shows more detail, does appear to be a knot there. Also looks like it's not disconnected.

Cheers,

Justin.

[allan gould]

Nice images all round. Havnt seen it yet - damned light pollution and neighbours

[h0ughy]

i agree the light pollution kills it for me as well

[MortonH]

Nothing on the web about a disconnection event, but maybe you were the first to see it!

[Scorpius51]

Here are a few links for other comets, describing the processes:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/encke.html

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/halebopp/disconnect/

http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/nearTailReconnect.pdf

http://www.stfc.ac.uk/News+and+Events/4831.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9F8KsOs3ls

http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/668/1/L79/fulltext/21977.text.html

Cheers
John

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Allan!

Hope you get to observve it soon.



Ditto for you David!



Thanks Morton!

I've emailed the image to Michael Mattiazzo, our southern comets man.
Hopefully he'll have a better idea.



Thanks for all that info!

The 2007 event with Comet Encke is amazing!

Cheers,

Justin.

[gregbradley]

It looks like a chunk blew off or it had an outburst earlier and is moving away from that.

I imaged it extensively last night with both CDK17 and a DSLR lens setup.

I haven't processed it yet. I have 2 nights worth. I didn't notice that in the subs though.

Greg.

[Outbackmanyep]

Yep, it's a disconnection event, it's affected by the solar wind changing polarity, ie: the comet crossing the heliospheric current sheet.

Funnily enough, Terry Lovejoy captured one on his latest image of L4 PanStarrs too.

Cheers!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Greg!

Looking forward to your image.



Thanks for that!

Nice to have confirmation.
These comets are keeping us on our toes!

Cheers,

Justin.

[Ross G]

Amazing capture Justin.

What exposure times did you use?

Ross.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Ross!

150 sec exposures.

Cheers,

Justin.

[orestis]

Stunning image Justin,

That is a most interesting phenomena, could a break off be caused by a large coronal mass ejection?

cheers
Orestis:thumbsup:

[OICURMT]

Nice links... thanks.


It'll be interesting to see how the knot matures over time.

Great find, I bet experts are scratching their head wondering why they didn't catch the event.

OIC!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Oretis!

Don't think there's been any mass ejections recently, but solar wind related.



Thanks OIC!

Cheers,

Justin.