Animation of motion in the coma and tail

Forums Comets C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) Animation of motion in the coma and tail

#582936
Nick James
Participant

I’ve only just got around to processing my images of C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) from July 22. An animation is here:

http://www.nickdjames.com/Comets/2020/2020f3_20200722_ndj.gif

This shows a field of view of 33×22 arcmin processed using a Larson-Sekanina filter with r=2, th=10 deg. There are 9 frames each of around 330s duration (from 2143 – 2228). You can clearly see motion in the tail and material spiraling out from the centre of the coma. The small black dot at the centre of the coma is the reference pixel for the filter.

I have done quite a few experiments with this data and I think the parameters I have chosen are the best compromise to show detail and motion (i.e. around 300s integrations and L-S with r=2, th=10).

It always amazes me that so much relative motion is visible in active comets over such a short period of time.