[BAA Comets] Post-perihelion fragmentation of 168P/Hergenrother

[Nick James]

I had a good opportunity to take some images of 168P last night in 
transparent skies using the relatively small (C11) telescope in my back 
garden. It is interesting to compare the results with those obtained 
with much larger telescopes.

The resulting image is here:

http://www.nickdjames.com/Comets/168p_20121101_ndj.jpg

FWHM was 3".5 which is not bad for here but doesn't really compare well 
to the 1".5 or less using the bigger scopes on mountains. There's no 
sign of the fragment (as expected at this resolution) but the rotational 
gradient does show flow down the near tail.

This is definitely a comet that is worth keeping under observation.

Nick.