19K
19K
Observers: O. Hainaut, K. Meech, J. Bauer, C. Petersen
Location: University of Hawaii
Date: November 12, 1996
Left exposure has been taken through a R filter; the exposure time was kept very short (10sec) in order not to saturate the central region of the comet. The images has been bias-subtracted and flatfielded (standard basic processing designed to correct the sensitivity variations of the detector), and is here displayed with a logarithmic grey-scale (O. R. Hainaut, K.J. Meech, J. Bauer and C.C. Petersen used the UH 2.2m telescope on Mauna Kea to obtain the data).
In the right exposure, the brightness of the coma (or "hair") of a comet that is smoothly, continuously active will drop as the inverse of the distance to the nucleus (i.e., as 1/rho). So, to enhance the deviations from a smooth coma such as jets, we divided the original image by a model representing a perfectly uniform comet with a 1/rho coma.
It is interesting to note that the jets and fans visible in November as quite similar to those we observed in September.
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