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Post Info TOPIC: C/2005 K2 LINEAR
Blobrana


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RE: C/2005 K2 LINEAR
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Observers in Europe and the U.S. have obtained CCD images that show what looks like its nucleus shedding a big fragment. LINEAR's secondary nucleus appeared as a small, 17th-magnitude fuzzy blob northeast of the primary, slowly drifting away in the direction of the comet's short tail.
The break-up may have been the cause of C/2005 K2's ongoing outburst in brightness, as fresh icy material in the nucleus's interior gets exposed to solar radiation, when a comet fragments, causing a dramatic increase in the gas and dust output.

Comets can break up due to structural weaknesses in their nuclei.
Solar heating, for example, can cause pockets of volatile ices to sublimate rapidly, inducing stresses in the nucleus. Some famous examples include Comet West, which split into four pieces after perihelion in 1976, and Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke apart due to tidal forces during a close approach to Jupiter prior to its discovery in 1993


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Observing from his Worth Hill Observatory in Dorset, U.K., David Strange captured this image of Comet LINEAR, C/2005 K2, on June 13th at 23:23 Universal Time.
It’s a stack of twenty 20-second exposures taken with a 20-inch f/4 Newtonian reflector and a Starlight Xpress MX916 CCD camera.
The comet's secondary nucleus is near the 10 o'clock position, also evident in the false-colour and image insets.
Photo by David Strange.

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Blobrana


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Comet LINEAR, C/2005 K2, glowing at about magnitude 9.2 as of June 17th is visible with a medium-sized telescope in the north-western sky at the end of evening twilight - but only for a few more days.

This minor comet recently brightened radically after going through a dramatic change. Observers in Europe and the U.S. have obtained CCD images that show what looks like its nucleus shedding a big fragment.
LINEAR's secondary nucleus appeared as a small, 17th-magnitude fuzzy blob northeast of the primary, slowly drifting away in the direction of the comet's short tail.

This break-up may have been the cause of C/2005 K2's ongoing outburst in brightness; the comet brightened from magnitude 12 to 9 in the first half of June. Typically, when a comet fragments, fresh icy material in the nucleus's interior gets exposed to solar radiation, causing a dramatic increase in the gas and dust output.

"At 40 power, the object looked decidedly noncometary. It was unusually elongated; it appeared more like an amorphous, low-surface-brightness galaxy than a comet, and that's what had me fooled initially." - David H. Levy


Comet on June 15th

Mike Holloway of Van Buren, Arkansas, captured two images on June 12th at 3:27 UT and June 15th at 2:56 UT. They show the fragment separating from the comet's main condensation during the 72-hour period.
Holloway used a 4-inch f/5.3 Takahashi refractor and an SBIG ST-2000XM CCD camera.

June 17 8h 48.3m +36° 39'
June 18 8h 48.3m +33° 44'
June 19 8h 48.1m +30° 54'
June 20 8h 47.7m +28° 10'
June 21 8h 47.2m +25° 31'
June 22 8h 46.5m +22° 59'

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Blobrana


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Looks like the comet has split into two parts…
The image (above post) by Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero in Italy show the two nucleuses.
Others have also seen the split (detailed in a Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegram (CBAT) document not available to the public).


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Blobrana


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Blobrana


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Comet C/2005 K2 Linear is brightening quickly and is now within range of most scopes.

C/2005 K2 is moving fast across the sky (at 7.8 arc seconds per minute relative to the fixed star fields) in Ursa Major.
It is important to use an up-to-date ephemeredes to locate it.

It is very diffuse but it should be an easy target for most scopes, but you may have to hunt around for it a bit if you do not have exact
coordinates.
It will appear like a faint fuzzy star.
Try to use the smallest, lowest magnification instrument (large binoculars being the first choice) that will successfully render the comet.


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Blobrana


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The new comet C/2005 K2 LINEAR was discovered on May 19th 2005 and is
brightening very rapidly.
Its currently at magnitude 12, so still needs a 8” telescope to see it..


from http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm



Date    R. A. (2000)   Dec.    Delta    r    Elong.  Phase    m1 
June 04    08 12.34  +74 51.0   0.693  0.882  58.7   79.2  12.7
June 09    08 39.08  +61 02.0   0.647  0.804  52.3   88.1  12.1
June 14    08 47.14  +45 43.9   0.640  0.729  45.6   95.6  11.7
June 19    08 48.10  +30 54.5   0.675  0.661  40.0   99.0  11.3
June 24    08 44.79  +18 15.1   0.746  0.605  36.2   97.0  11.2
June 29    08 38.34  +08 26.6   0.843  0.564  33.7   90.2  11.1
July 04    08 29.61  +01 21.3   0.954  0.546  31.9   80.4  11.3
July 09    08 19.64  -03 28.9   1.066  0.551  30.6   69.8  11.6




-- Edited by Blobrana at 22:12, 2005-06-07

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