73P COMET UPDATE

[daz]

Via my A.S. .......

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The SOCIETY for POPULAR ASTRONOMY

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Special Electronic News Bulletin 2006 May 10

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COMET 73P/SCHWASSMANN-WACHMANN

By Jonathan Shanklin SPA Comet Director

Fragment 'B' of comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has undergone a

substantial outburst in the last couple of days. I observed it on the

evening

of May 9th from near the centre of Cambridge and it was 6.1 in 20x80B,

with a 4' well-condensed coma, and very easy despite city light pollution,

mist turning to low cloud and bright moonlight. Observers with better

skies have reported much larger coma diameters up to 50' and a

magnitude of 5. This evening (May10) it will be 6 degrees from Vega on

a line running through epsilon.

Fragment 'C' is some 15 degrees away, crossing the neck of Cygnus and

is about 6th magnitude. Both are rapidly moving out of the evening sky

and will be lost to UK skies in a fortnight.

For more information on current comets see

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds