Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2833m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #28.33; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.966
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
In order to meet Stardust-NExT mission requirements of imaging 25 percent of the previously imaged area to look for changes between perihelia and to image the Deep Impact crater, precise information about the rotational phase was needed 1 year before the 14 Feb. 2011 encounter. An international observing campaign during fall 2009 was undertaken to obtain time-resolved observations to combine with rotation light curve data since 1997. The approach utilized HST observations from Sep. 12-14, 2009 using the WF3 camera to obtain data over a full rotation so our team could identify the
rotational phase of the nucleus. Follow up observations on 24 nights from mid November 2009 through early January 2010 from Mauna Kea, BOAO, Lowell observatory, KPNO, the Himalayan Chandra telescope, Yunnan observatory, and the Purple Mountain Observatory were used to refine the precision of the period. The HST light curve exhibited uneven minima, differing in depth by 0.1 mag and this lined up perfectly with the previous HST observations obtained in 2004, suggesting that there have been no large scale changes in albedo on the surface of comet Tempel 1 caused by the Deep Impact experiment. At 3.78 AU, the HST observations were consistent with an inactive nucleus. None of the deep images of the nucleus during Nov-Jan showed any evidence of dust coma. Continued observations of the comet until it went into solar conjunction in June 2010 allowed us to watch the onset of activity. We will discuss the observing campaign, and the results of the image analysis, for the onset of dust production. This work was supported in part by the Stardust-NExT project through an award from Cornell University 51326-8653, and from the NASA through STScI HSt-GO-11998.01A.
9PTempel-1 Observing Campaign Group
A'Hearn Michael F.
Belton Michael J. S.
Meech Karen Jean
Pittichova Jana
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