Narrowband Filter Photometry of Five Comets

✍ Scribed by T.A. Ellis; J.S. Neff

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 94 KB
• Volume: 145
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0019-1035
• DOI: 10.1006/icar.2000.6345

✦ Synopsis

Eighty-five photometric scans of the inner comae of Comets P/Giacobini-Zinner, Sorrells, Bradfield, Furuyama, and P/Borrelly were obtained from 1985-1988. These comets were each observed on at least one night during this period of time, using narrowband filters to isolate C 2 , C 3 , and CN emission and the blue and UV continuum. Molecular column densities and production rates were calculated for Bradfield, Furuyama, and P/Borrelly. For Comet Bradfield the post-perihelion production rates were plotted against the Suncomet distance (r ) and were found to vary as r -1.9 (C 2 ), r -1.6 (C 3 ), r -1.9 (CN), and r -1.4 (dust). In addition, the production rate ratios were shown to have no significant dependence upon activity or Sun-comet distance.