Comet 2P/Encke: an image (14 Sept. 2013)
Comet 2P/Encke – 14 Sept. 2013
While comet Ison is approaching and comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy was just discovered, we wanted to observe another comet, too: comet 2P/Encke.
It is a periodic comet orbiting the Sun once every three years, being the shortest period of any known comet. Its next approach to Earth will be on October 17, 2013, at about 80 millions of km.
The image above is the average of 9, 180 seconds exposures, remotely taken with the PlaneWave 17″ robotic unit part of the Virtual Telescope The robotic mount tracked the apparent motion of the comet. A faint come is visible all around the nucleus.
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