Comet Lovejoy, an analysis of the inner coma

Comet ISON fizzles out at the perihelion

Comet ISON on its passage by the perihelion seems to have fizzled out the remains don't show a nuclear condensation.

Comet C/2012 S1 ISON on 2013-Oct-05

As the comet approaches perihelion it looks in good condition, no disintegration yet.

C/2012 S1 ISON, 2013-10-05 4:19:28 UT J87 Observatory La Cañada (c) Juan Lacruz

This is the above image aftter being cropped and resized 2x, a false color rendition show better the comma extents.

C/2012 S1 ISON, 2013-10-05 4:19:28 UT False color, J87 Observatory La Cañada (c) Juan Lacruz

Comet ISON, La Cañada 2013-08-24

Comet ISON was hiden by the Sun a few months, now it is visible again, this picture is a stack taken just before the sunrise from La Cañada.

C/2012 S1 ISON & C/2013 H1 La Sagra 2013.04.19

The comet C/2012 S1 ISON continues at mag 15.9R and shows a tail around 30 arc seconds long in position angle 90 degrees.

Comet ISON is potentially the "comet of the century" because it is expected to become very bright when approaching the perihelion.

ISON stands for International Scientific Optical Network, a group of observatories in ten countries organized to detect and track objects in space, it is managed by the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 

A new object found by the J75 survey La Sagra and posted on the NEOCP has shown cometary features in the initial and confirmation images by various observatories. The initial orbit a=2.5 e = 0.5 has been found to be cometary with a = 27 and e = 1.0, a  parabolic, long period orbit.

References MPEC-2013-H27, CBET 3485 (subscribers)

Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS 30-Mar-2013 20:43 UT La Cañada (c) Juan Lacruz
Canon EOS 1D MK IV + EF 400 mm F5.6 ISO 400,  30 sec

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS 30-Mar-2013 20:44 UT La Cañada (c) Juan Lacruz
Canon EOS 1D MK IV + EF 400 mm F5.6 ISO 400,  30 sec

Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS 22-03-2013

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS, 22-03-2013 20:35 UT Madrid
(c) Juan Lacruz

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS, 22-03-2013 20:51 UT Madrid
(c) Juan Lacruz

Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS

For a while the clouds opened and gave a chance to shot some pictures of this nice comet C/2011 L4  PANSTARRS from Madrid, Spain. The star to right is Gamma Pegasi, Algenib. 

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS Canon EOS 1D + EF 500 @ F4, 0.5 seconds ISO 400.
14-March-2013, 19:32 UT Madrid, Spain, (c) Juan Lacruz

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS Canon EOS 1D + EF 500 @ F4, 1.0 seconds ISO 400.
14-March-2013, 19:58 UT Madrid, Spain, (c) Juan Lacruz

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS Canon EOS 1D + EF 500 @ F4, 1.0 seconds ISO 400.
14-March-2013, 20:12 UT Madrid, Spain, (c) Juan Lacruz

Comet ISON 2013-Feb-14

Comet ISON doesn't follow the predicted trend and seems stalled at mag 15.9R

Comet ISON starts developing

NEOCP Confirmations

A new amor object with provisional designation 2013 AL11 was observed and confirmed with the 0.40 m telescope at La Cañada, moving quite fast at about 5 arc seconds per minute the individual exposures were limited to 12 seconds to keep the object untrailed.

References : MPEC 2013-A25

New apollo object designated as 2013 AO27 confirmed.

References : MPEC 2013-A38

Comets C/2012 K5 LINEAR & C/2012 S1 ISON

One hour exposure on Comet ISON, La Cañada 0,40 m F10 Ritchey-Chretien telescope

Comet C/2012 S1 ISON from Observatorio de La Cañada J87 on  05-January-2013

Signal to noise ratio in Y-axis,  full width at half maximum FWHM in X-axis, comet in red, surrounding stars in blue.  

Comet C/2012 S1 ISON, not an obvious comet at the moment, displays a coma size of 15 arc seconds in diameter. This Sun grazer comet is supposed to brighten in its approach to perihelion by 28-November-2013 to become one of these comets to remember.

C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, the first comet of the year

 January opened with very stable weather at La Cañada, the night of the 4th the average seeing was 2.8 arc seconds which allowed the confirmation followup of the first comet of the year posted on the Minor Planet Center Neo Confirmation Page.

C/2013 A1 (in red) rest of field stars in blue, signal to noise ratio against FWHM plot

Although the comet, at a first glance, doesn't display clear evidences of either coma or tail on the stacked images obtained with the 0.4 m Ritchey-Chretien telescope it definitely stands out from the rest of the sorrounding stars when plotted in a graph of the signal to noise ratio (Y-axis) against the full width at half maximum (X-axis).

Back to the picture, on a more careful inspection, it shows a hint of a tail in the north east direction, measuring the coma size its diameter is around 10 arc seconds.

References : MPEC 2013-A14, CBET 3368