HST Observations of C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp)

Details HST Observations of C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) HST Observations of C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp)

Sep 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996dps....28.0931w&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #28, #09.31; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.1094

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The activity of comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1) is being systematically monitored using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Imaging observations with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) began on 26 Sep 1995 when the comet had a heliocentric distance (r) of 6.60 AU, while spectroscopic observations with the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) began on 25 Oct 1995 at r=6.34 AU. The spatial brightness profiles of the images have a pronounced cusp in the core indicating that reflection from the nucleus has been detected above the level contributed by the coma. Assuming that the geometric albedo is 4%, we estimate that the effective diameter of the nucleus is ~ 40 km. Only continuum was detected during the Oct 1995 spectroscopic observations. Both OH and CS emissions were first detected during observations on 7 Apr 1996 at a heliocentric distance of 4.78 AU, from which we derive H2O and CS production rates of 2.5 x 10(28) and 3.5 x 10(26) , respectively. Between April and late July 1996 the H2O production rate increased by a factor of ~ 6 while the CS production rate remained roughly constant. Three bands in the CO Cameron system were marginally detected ( ~ 5sigma ) during observations on 23 Jun 1996 (r=4.00 AU) and 26 Jul 1996 (r=3.64 AU). Assuming that the Cameron bands are produced solely by photodissociative excitation of CO2, and using the solar minimum rate constant for this process, we derive a CO2 production rate of ~ 5 x 10(28) mol s(-1) for both dates. The latter value is an upper limit on the CO2 production rate if electron impact on CO also contributes significantly to the excitation of the Cameron bands. No emission was detected in the (0,1) band of the CO Fourth Positive Group near 1597 Angstroms, but saturation effects are probably important in this case.

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