[BAA Comets] 289P/Blanpain

[Andrew Robertson]

P.S. I did once think I'd seen it and did a positional sketch, it was a mag 15.5 GX so a similar sighting could explain a mistaken identification by someone.

Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: Comets-disc [mailto:comets-disc-bounces at lists.britastro.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Robertson
Sent: 25 March 2020 08:31
To: 'BAA Comets discussion list' <comets-disc at lists.britastro.org>
Subject: Re: [BAA Comets] 289P/Blanpain

Hi Nick,

I looked for it several times with my 24" up until a few weeks ago (gave up) and absolutely nothing, not even the slightest hint of 'maybe' something there.

Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: Comets-disc [mailto:comets-disc-bounces at lists.britastro.org] On Behalf Of Nick James
Sent: 25 March 2020 07:28
To: BAA Comets discussion list <comets-disc at britastro.org>
Subject: [BAA Comets] 289P/Blanpain

Morning all,

This comet has caused a lot of comment this year since the MPC published magnitude parameters which implied that it would be quite bright but, in fact, it was very faint. The current MPC params are currently predicting mag 3.8 for last night. JPL Horizons is predicting 22.0 so quite a large difference!

I noticed that on COBS a visual observer has been reporting the comet to be around mag 13 but recent images from my observatory show nothing to mag 20. The current COBS data is here:

https://www.cobs.si/analysis2?plot_type=0&end_date=2020/03/26%2000:00&col=comet_id&obs_type=0&id=875&start_date=2020/01/01%2000:00

The last image we have showing this comet in the BAA archive is on 2020 Feb 6 when it was around 18.5. This matches the Kevin Hills data in COBS for Feb 12.

Has anyone imaged this comet in the last month? Is there anything that could explain the visual observation other than mis-identification?

Nick.

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