(6478) Gault, the “double” tailed asteroid: a new image – 25 Feb. 2019
Exploiting a very clear sky, we made a deep image of asteroid (6478) Gault, now showing a narrow, dusty tail. We could observe its newer tail, too, as in the image below.
(6478) Gault: 25 Feb. 2019
The image above comes from the average of 25, 300-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely collected with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project. The image scale is 1.2″/pixel. We also used an inverted palette, to underline the faintest region of the dusty tail.
We find for the tail similar length (7 arc-mins) and orientation (PA=293 deg) as yesterday. The second, much shorter and newer tail pointing further north is well visible, too.
We will monitor how this will evolve. You can find all our images of (6478) Gault here.
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