Follow-up observations of Comet 17P/Holmes after its extreme outburst in brightness end of October 2007

TL;DR

This study presents follow-up optical observations of comet 17P/Holmes after its dramatic brightness outburst in October 2007, analyzing its orbital elements, coma expansion, and photometric activity decline over several months.

Contribution

It provides precise astrometry, coma expansion velocity, and photometric activity data post-outburst, offering new insights into the comet's behavior after a major outburst.

Findings

Comet's coma expanded linearly at about 1650 km/s.

Photometric activity decreased by 5.9 mag over 105 days.

Orbital elements were refined through precise astrometry.

Abstract

We present follow-up observations of comet 17/P Holmes after its extreme outburst in brightness, which occurred end of October 2007. We obtained 58 V-band images of the comet between October 2007 and February 2008, using the Cassegrain-Teleskop-Kamera (CTK) at the University Observatory Jena. We present precise astrometry of the comet, which yields its most recent Keplerian orbital elements. Furthermore, we show that the comet's coma expands quite linearly with a velocity of about 1650km/s between October and December 2007. The photometric monitoring of comet 17/P Holmes shows that its photometric activity level decreased by about 5.9mag within 105 days after its outburst.