Comet C/2011 J2 Linear splitting: new image (20 Oct. 2014) and 45-days animation

Comet C/2011 J2 Linear with its fragment: 20 Oct. 2014

After one month and an half, at Virtual Telescope we visited again comet C/2011 J2 Linear and its fragment b, finding both of them in good shape. Fragment b has clearly faded since we started covering early in Sept.  the splitting event.

The image above comes from nine, 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. The telescope tracked at the apparent rate of the comet.

Below is a video covering the comet and the fragment from 7 Sept. to 20 Oct., every a few days (dates are reported on each frame). Needless to say, fragment b is slowly receding from the main component.

C/2011 J2: evolution from 7 Sept. to 20 Oct. 2014. Click for Hi-Res version

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