[BAA Comets] Observers J-F Soulier and JJ Gonzalez capture Comet 29P/S-W1 undergoing a strong outburst

[Nick James]

Richard,

That is an excellent piece of work and the BAA news item is a very 
interesting read. Dedicating equipment to monitoring 29P has really paid 
off.

Nick.

On 11/07/2017 00:21, Richard Miles wrote:
> For the very first time the onset and development of an outburst of 
> enigmatic comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has been captured thanks to 
> independent observations by Jean-François Soulier and Juan Jose Gonzalez 
> Diaz on 2017 July 02. Details can be found on the BAA webpage:
> 
> https://www.britastro.org/node/10684
> 
> That BOTH observers were carrying out a time-series of CCD images at the 
> SAME time is an amazing coincidence especially when it is realised that 
> this is only the SECOND such strong outburst so far during 2017 and that 
> such an event is more or less over and done within a time-window of 
> about one hour!
> 
> 29P was discovered 90 years ago and at last we have some hard data 
> showing the onset of an outburst event. The beginning of the outburst is 
> very sudden and, as such, it is clearly a singular event reminiscent of 
> a cryovolcanic eruption at the nucleus. Analysis of the form of the 
> rising lightcurve should provide some valuable insight into this 
> possibility.
> 
> The actual event was also the third very significant outburst within 
> less than 10 days and it is likely that the all three are inter-related 
> in some way, e.g. the first event triggered the second, which triggered 
> the third. Since the July 2nd event, a fourth outburst has also taken 
> place just 3.5 days later! See Figure 3 at the above URL to see an 
> example of the photometric lightcurve these past 45 days.
> 
> Extremely well done Jean-François and Juanjo.
> 
> Congratulations,
> Richard Miles
> BAA
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Comets-disc mailing list
> Comets-disc at lists.britastro.org
> http://lists.britastro.org/mailman/listinfo/comets-disc