[BAA Comets] Small outburst of Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann

[Richard Miles]

It appears that this comet has outburst around April 14. Thanks to imaghes 
taken by 3 schools/colleges working with the Faulkes Telescope team, we have 
some images taken earlier today which I have processed and analysed.

The mages of 29P taken with the Faulkes Telescopes North and South on April 
12 and April 16 can be found at:
http://britastro.org/~rmiles/Images/29P_2013Apr12-16_labelA.jpg

There appears to be a condensation in the coma about 2.0" from the 
pseudonucleus as shown when a rotational gradient filter of 20 degrees 
(courtesy of IRIS software) is applied.
N.B. This is quite a weak outburst compared to what we witnessed back in 
2010 for example.

It is interesting to compare the April 16.53 Faulkes R-filter image with 
that obtained by Jean-Francois Soulier about April 16.01. See:
http://6888comete.free.fr/fr/image29Pschwassmannwachmannfrance.htm

His image is unfiltered and shows a much more spherical (larger?) shell. I 
suspect that there may be emission in the blue and green due to expanding 
gas which contributes to the unfiltered image but which does not show up in 
the R-filter image

Rolando Ligustri's image of April 16.42 taken also with an R filter is much 
more similar in appearance to the Faulkes image. See:
https://plus.google.com/photos/107386404051271210368/albums/5452252571099371489/5867506591815737218?banner=pwa

We know that CO is released when 29P outbursts and this gas may be 
fluorescing and so is detectable visually or with an unfiltered CCD but not 
an R-filtered image!

Richard Miles
BAA