[BAA Comets] Major outburst of Comet 29P, magnitude 13.8R

[Richard Miles]

29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has undergone a major outburst brightening by 3.1 
magnitudes in less than 24 hours as discovered by Jean-François Soulier from 
images taken with a 0.4-m R-C telescope at the SpaceObs facility, San Pedro 
de Atacama, Chile operated by Alain Maury.

>From J-F Soulier's data, this latest outburst took place on 2014 September 
30.52+/-0.40. Images and measurements taken yesterday and earlier today show 
the transformation of the comet which has brightened to 13th magnitude and 
is now essentially stellar in appearance. See:

http://6888comete.free.fr/fr/image29PschwassmannwachmannChile.html

Observers are encouraged to monitor the outburst. As well as submitting 
astrometric observations to the MPC, you may wish to report photometry to 
myself. If so, then unfiltered or R-filtered images are preferred, and these 
should be reduced relative to the UCAC-4 reference catalogue R magnitudes. 
Please use a measurement aperture of radius 5.5 arcsec (or nearest possible 
to this value), or a square aperture of side 10 arcsec (or nearest to this 
value). Magnitudes so derived should be expressed to 2 decimal places. 
E-mail address: rmiles [a] baa dot u-net dot com

Note that the comet is currently at -28 degrees declination and at an 
evening solar elongation of 52 degrees and falling so this will rapidly 
become a challenging target best placed for southern hemisphere observers.

Richard Miles / Jean-François Soulier