[BAA Comets] C/2017 E4 (Lovejoy) fading

[Johan Warell]

Great image Nick given the circumstances! The comet has definately
transformed and yes it looks like a breakup event of some sort has
occurred.

Unfortunately I cannot image it from my observatory.

I could not see the elongation visually, only that the bright center had
faded substantially.

Let's keep a close eye on it!

Best, Johan

ons 19 apr. 2017 kl. 09:19 skrev Nick James <ndj at nickdjames.com>:

> Johan,
>
> I imaged the comet this morning in a brightening sky and it has
> definitely faded significantly since my last observation.
>
> https://www.britastro.org/node/9942
>
> There is no longer any starlike centre and the coma is spead out in a
> line around 30 arcsec long. This makes astrometry very difficult. It
> looks to me as though the nucleus is breaking up as the comet approaches
> perihelion.
>
> Nick.
>
> On 19/04/2017 08:11, Johan Warell wrote:
> > Observed comet Lovejoy early this morning, now about 5 degrees south of
> > M31. It was fainter and more diffuse than I expected and somewhat of a
> > disappointment. I estimated mag 9.5, dia 3 and DC 4 with 40x100 binos on
> a
> > clear and dark (NELM 6.6) sky, just before moonrise. It was at a low (10
> > degrees) altitude which made the estimate somewhat uncertain.
> >
> > There was nine-day lapse of observations on COBS, at that time it was
> about
> > mag 7.0. Is this comet fading faster than expected?
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Johan
> >
> > Lindby Obs (K60)
> > Skurup, Sweden
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>
>