Fabry-Perot Observations of Comet Austin 1990 V

Details Fabry-Perot Observations of Comet Austin 1990 V Fabry-Perot Observations of Comet Austin 1990 V

Dec 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992aas...181.6102s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 181st AAS Meeting, #61.02D; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 24, p.1218

Physics

Space Physics

Scientific paper

In April and May 1990 the Wisconsin Space Physics Group obtained high spectral resolution (0.2 Angstroms , or 10 km s(-1) ) scans and images in an extensive series of observations of comet Austin, using a 150 mm dual etalon Fabry-Perot spectrometer coupled to the 0.91 m West Auxiliary of the McMath Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona. The field of view (FOV) on the sky was 10acute {.} 5 in diameter. To deduce the spatial distribution of cometary O(^{1D)}, we used images of comet Austin [O i]6300 Angstroms emission. The 10 km s(-1) bandpass of the system allowed the measurement of the distribution with little contamination from airglow [O i]6300 Angstroms and cometary NH2 lines. We modeled the results to determine that the solar maximum photodestruction lifetime of OH at 1 AU, tau _OH,1 AU, is (1.1 +/- 0.3) times 10(5) s, which is consistent with the theoretical value of 1.4 times 10(5) s (Schleicher and A'Hearn 1988). We used measurements of [O i]6300 Angstroms intensity from spectral scans to determine the O(^{1D)} production rate, Q_O(^{1D)}, and its dependence on heliocentric distance Rh. Adopting a value for Q_H2O / Q_O((1D)) , we determined the H2O production rate, Q_H2O , and compared it with the results of several other groups, as well as with the visual light curve. >From scans of the H_{2O^{+}} (0,8,0) band spin doublets at 6158.64, 6158.86 Angstroms and 6146.80, 6147.38 Angstroms , we obtained average H_{2O^{+}} intensities and anti-sunward velocities for nine nights. We used these observations and a simple model to determine values of the ion production rate, Q_H_{2O^{+}}. Comparing these rates with Q_H2O, we determine that the detected tailward fluxes of H_{2O^{+}} ions were only a small fraction of the fluxes predicted by photoionization models. We attempted to obtain velocity resolved sequences of images (``datacubes'') of both the H_{2O^{+}} 6158.8 and 6147.1 doublets. We will present our method, as well as why it did not produce useful results for this comet.

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