2022 November 17

Mission 29P Blog 17 November 2022

A new outburst event has been detected – the 10th this apparition, of which we have now completed one-third. Although the latest mini-outburst this morning exhibited a 0.18 mag amplitude in the standard aperture, when measured in a 1.7 arcsec radius aperture, the amplitude increased to 0.35 mag (17.53R => 17.18R).

The additional new outburst coma equates to some 35% of the area of the nucleus alone, which represents the intrinsically weakest event detected during the past 20 months.

Patrick Wiggins, after discovering a Type 1a supernova (SN 2022aaiq) on November 15 has, with his 29P images of November 17, confirmatory evidence of this latest mini-outburst. His observations are a little earlier too, which means we can tighten up on the timing precision plus also recognise that the event looks to be of 0.21 mag amplitude or 41% of the nucleus-equivalent area. Thanks Patrick!