The Nucleus of Comet 22P/Kopff and Its Inner Coma

✍ Scribed by P.L. Lamy; I. Toth; L. Jorda; O. Groussin; M.F. A'Hearn; H.A. Weaver

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 265 KB
• Volume: 156
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0019-1035
• DOI: 10.1006/icar.2001.6785

✦ Synopsis

We report the detection of the nucleus of Comet 22P/Kopff with the Planetary Camera of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and with the Infrared Camera of the Infrared Space Observatory (ISOCAM). The HST observations were performed on 18 July 1996, 16 days after its perihelion passage of 2 July 1996, when it was at R h = 1.59 AU from the Sun and = 0.57 AU from the Earth. A sequence of images taken with four broad-band filters was repeated eight times over a 12-h time interval. The ISOCAM observations were performed on 15 October 1996, 106 days after the perihelion passage, when the comet was at R h = 1.89 AU from the Sun and = 1.32 AU from the Earth. Seven images were obtained with a broad-band filter centered at 11.5 µm. In both instances, the spatial resolution was appropriate to separate the signal of the nucleus from that of the coma. We determine the Johnson-Kron-Cousins BVRI magnitudes of the nucleus. The visible lightcurves constrain