Comet 46P/Wirtanen apparition: a new image (7 Dec. 2018)
Comet 46P/Wirtanen was imaged again via the Virtual Telescope, now that is constantly improving its visibility. Here it is what we saw.
Comet 46P/Wirtanen: 7 Dec. 2018
The image above comes from the average of six, 180-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely collected with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project. The robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion comet Wirtanen, so stars left trails on the background. The image scale is 1.2″/pixel.
This close-up captures the inner coma and the false nucleus, where the “dirty snowball” originating the whole activity is placed. Images were carefully processed to preserve the delicate visibility of the coma. You can see our past images of the same object here.
We plan to follow comet 46P intensively and we will also share it live, online, soon, so stay tuned!
NB: we have here a quick guide for you to observe comet Wirtanen personally!
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