Comet C/2011 J2 Linear splitting: a new image (10 Oct. 2014) and 34-days animation
Comet C/2011 J2 Linear with its fragment: 10 Oct. 2014
As we saw last 6 Oct., comet C/2011 J2 Linear and its fragment b showed significant changes, with the smaller component apparently fading. The Moon was a serious issue, so further observations were planned for 10 Oct. Unfortunately, the sky was not fully clear, but at least the Moon was not present.
The new image above comes from eleven, 300-seconds unfiltered exposures, remotely collected with the PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E robotic unit part of the Virtual Telescope Project. They were combined using a median technique, to limit the potential interference of faint stars with the fragment. Fragment b confirms to be fainter. The telescope tracked at the apparent rate of the comet.
Adding this new image to our interesting collection covering this object, it is possible to make a precious animation showing how the fragment separated in more than one month, summarizing our whole coverage.
C/2011 J2: evolution from 7 Sept. to 10 Oct. 2014. Click for Hi-Res version
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