The attached composite uses images that were taken about a month each side of perihelion using the same camera and settings at not too dissimilar altitudes. Not sure what can be taken from them but the coma size now is clearly much larger even taking into account the difference in distance from Earth. How much this is contributing to the increase in brightness (m1) being reported post-perihelion isn't clear although at first glance there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in the bright inner coma. The yellow-green colour in the 17 Dec image may be due to increased dust near the horizon at that date. Or not! |
Page last updated: Sun 2 Apr 08:05:37 BST 2023