Infrared Monitoring of Comet p/ Halley

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

We present the results of an infrared monitoring program of comet P/Halley. Multiaperture photometry between 1 and 5 μm was obtained during 12 nights in the preperihelion phase from the Gornergrat observatory, and during 4 nights in the postperilielion phase from the ESO 1-m telescope at La Silla. In addition, 10 and 20 μm photometry was obtained on November 4 and 7, when the comet was at 1.88 AU from the Sun. An analysis of the JHK data indicates that Halley was typically somewhat redder than the Sun ( = 0.48, = 0.18) and that its colors did not change throughout our monitoring period, implying that the properties of the dust in the coma remained constant. Also, with the exception of November 4 and March 21, when Halley was presumably undergoing an outburst, the multiaperture data are consistent with an r-2 density distribution of scattering dust in the coma. Furthermore, the flux from Halley in its quiescent phase increased as R-4.5, where R is the heliocentric distance. The 10 μm silicate feature in emission was detected at about the 2σ level on 4 and 7 November, and from the spectral energy distribution at that time we deduced an albedo of 0.05 for the scattering dust in the coma.

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