Infrared Spectroscopy of C/1999 T1 (McNaught-Hartley)

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We report on infrared spectroscopic observations of the long-period comet C/1999 T1 (McNaught-Hartley) made from the Keck Observatory during 2001 February 5-6 UT. At that time, the comet's heliocentric distance was 1.44--1.45 AU, the geocentric distance was 1.29 AU, the geocentric radial velocity was ˜1.5--2.4 km s-1, and the water production rate was ˜5 × 1028 s-1. We used the NIRSPEC instrument, which is a cross-dispersed grating spectrometer, to cover the entire wavelength range between 2.88 μ m and 3.72 μ m with a spectral resolving power of ˜20,000. We also obtained spectra of selected regions in the M-band (near 5 μ m) and K-band (between 2.0 μ m and 2.5 μ m). Numerous cometary lines were detected, including emissions from C 2H 6, CH 3OH, H 2O, OH (both prompt and fluorescent emissions), and possibly HCN, C 2H 2, and CH 4. As the NIRSPEC spectral images exhibit both spatial and spectral distortions, we developed an IDL-based analysis tool that performs a true, 2-dimensional rectification of the data. Using this tool, which is general enough to be applied to data obtained with other instruments, we can extract spectra of optimal signal-to-noise ratio and perform accurate analyses of the spatial brightness distributions of the various species. We present results using this tool for the 33 separate spectral orders covered during our NIRSPEC observations of C/McNaught-Hartley.

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