C/2011 W3 (LOVEJOY) - Kreutz Sungrazing Comet
The comet appears to be a Kreutz sungrazer, a family of sungrazing comets that are named after German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz who first studied them in the details. These comet fragments passes extremely close to the Sun at perihelion and usually they completely evaporated during such a close approach.
This is the first ground-Based discovery of a Kreutz Sungrazing Comet since 1970!!
We performed some follow-up measurements of this object remotely from the GRAS Observatory (Australia - MPC Code E03) on 2011, December 04.7 through a 0.10-m f/5 reflector + CCD.
Below you can see an animation showing the fast movement of the comet in the sky. Each frame is a 30-second exposure. Click here or on the thumbnail for a bigger version.
M.P.E.C. 2011-X16 assignes the following preliminary orbital elements to comet C/2011 W3: T 2011 Dec. 15.99; e= 1.0; Peri. = 57.14; q = 0.005 AU; Incl.= 135.93
The comet is now rapidly brightening but seems intrinsically faint. It may not survive its close perihelion (at 0.0058936AU, which is a little over 1.2 solar radii) passage on December 16th that will bring it within 880,000 km of the center of the Sun (comet C/2011 W3 will pass just 180,000 km from the Sun’s surface).
The following ephemeris (from Cbet 2930) assumes H = 14.0 and 2.5n = 8. Note that the rate of brightness increase is highly uncertain.
Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Mag
2011 12 06 15 35.96 -47 53.6 0.708 0.505 29.3 11.4
2011 12 07 15 53.78 -46 18.1 0.716 0.470 26.5 11.2
2011 12 08 16 10.34 -44 31.1 0.727 0.434 23.8 10.9
2011 12 09 16 25.59 -42 34.2 0.742 0.397 21.1 10.6
2011 12 10 16 39.54 -40 28.8 0.759 0.358 18.5 10.3
2011 12 11 16 52.22 -38 15.8 0.780 0.316 15.8 10.0
2011 12 12 17 03.68 -35 55.6 0.804 0.272 13.1 9.5
2011 12 13 17 13.96 -33 27.7 0.833 0.223 10.4 8.9
2011 12 14 17 23.07 -30 48.9 0.869 0.169 7.7 8.0
2011 12 15 17 30.86 -27 50.3 0.914 0.105 4.7 6.5
2011 12 16 17 32.18 -23 05.4 0.989 0.006 0.2 -3.4
2011 12 17 17 16.52 -25 17.7 0.919 0.104 4.9 6.4
2011 12 18 17 10.86 -27 27.6 0.873 0.169 7.8 8.0
2011 12 19 17 06.90 -29 31.8 0.835 0.223 10.5 8.9
2011 12 20 17 03.78 -31 35.1 0.802 0.271 13.0 9.5
2011 12 21 17 01.19 -33 39.8 0.771 0.316 15.4 9.9
Extreme care is needed due to the comet's small solar elongation angle and close proximity to the Sun in the sky.
Congrats to Terry Lovejoy his third comet discovery!! On comets-ml mailing list you can read the full discovery story written by Terry himself.
By Ernesto Guido, Giovanni Sostero & Nick Howes