News from the observatory of the January 12th 2010:

2010AL30

From december 14th to 20th 2004 I made some pictures of the now extinct comet (3200) Phaethon. Seiichi Yoshida directed an international campaign in order to detect an eventually tail of this object. (3200)Phaethon is believed to be the ancestor of the geminid meteor shower. The results of the observational campaign are here.

C/2004Q2 Machholz

Still images of C/2004Q2 Machholz taken at Gnosca in winter 2004/05. Gianluca Cassina measured the absolute escape velocity of the ion tail obtaining 200 ± 60 km/s in the evening of Jan 4th 2005.

51P Harrington

The comet 51P Harrington showed 2 comas.

P/2004V5 LINEAR-Hill

The comet P/2004V5 LINEAR-Hill also broke in several pieces.

17P Holmes

The outburst of Comet 17P Holmes imaged in the winter season 2007/08. The images were taken at the observatory. The addition and assembly were made by Jonathan Muri.

Jonathan also calculated the absolute expansion velocity of the coma from october to january:

“SUNWARD” EXPANSION: 324 ± 23 m/s.

“LEFT” EXPANSION: 432 ± 26 m/s.

“RIGHT” EXPANSION: 450 ± 27 m/s.

The “sunward” expansion was about 70% of the lateral expansions (left or right).

Taking into account only the first two days, from Oct 27th to Oct 28th, the expansion velocity was:

“SUNWARD” EXPANSION: 582 ± 37 m/s.

Extrapolating back, the outburst time occured:

OCT 24TH 2007 at 07:30 UTC ± 6H.

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