Comets C/2020F3 (NEOWISE) and C/2017T2 (PANSTARRS)

Comets C/2020F3 (NEOWISE) and C/2017T2 (PANSTARRS) on 10.08.2020

© Velimir Popov & Emil Ivanov 2020

Size: 1800 px

C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is a retrograde comet with a near-parabolic orbit. It was discovered on March 27, 2020 by the NEOWISE space telescope. It passed perihelion at 0.29 AU (43 million km) from the Sun on July 3, 2020. When the comet entered the field of view of SOHO LASCO C3 on 22 June 2020 the comet had brightened to magnitude 3. Comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) was discovered on October 2nd 2017 by Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala). By the time of discovery it was 19.9m.. Recent observations (Manzini et al., 2020) with the 1.82m Copernico telescope (OAPD-INAF) of the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory (MPC 098, Italy) on 29th. April 2020 reveal some circular structures, concentric to the comet’s optocenter. This finding may be suggestive of a strong activity modulated by a rotation of the nucleus with a spin axis directed towards the Earth in this period. This image is taken on August 10th. 2020 between 21.25 and 23.25 LT (19.25 and 21.25 UT). The comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) appeared to be in the tail of C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). The angular distamce between the nuclei of the two comets was less than 3°.

Image details:

Center of field RA	13:14:27 (h:m:s)
Center of field DE	+18:01:05 (deg:m:s)
Size	76.6 x 51.1 (arcmin)
Pixel scale:	2.6 (arcsec/pixel)
Orientation:	Up is 338 degrees E of N

Optic(s):	12" ASA Astrograph at F/3.6
Mount:	ASA DDM85 Standard
Camera:	SBIG STL 11000 M
Filters:	Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, Astronomik filters
Dates/Times:	10.Aug. 2020
Location:	IRIDA Observatory, BG, longitude: E 24 44' 18", latitude: N 41 41' 42"
Exp. Details:	;L:4x3min, R:4x3 min, G:4x3 min, B:4x3 min; Bin 2. Four panels mosaic Total exp.time: 48 min
More details:	Dark and flat frames reduction
Processing:	PS

e-mail: info@irida-observatory.org