C/2001 N2 (LINEAR)

C/2001 N2 (LINEAR) is another of the many objects reported as asteroids by the LINEAR telescope and later shown to have cometary activity. The object was detected in LINEAR images taken on July 11th 2001 at magnitude 18.1 and confirmed as cometary at Table Mountain Observatory on the 13th. The comet was found to have a slightly hyperbolic (e=1.001) retrograde orbit with perihelion on August 19th 2002 at 2.67AU.


The light curve

The light curve shows the comet to be a relatively faint object with a only a rather slow rate of brightening on approach to the Sun. Maximum brightness was expected to be reached close to opposition in July 2002.

The light curve shows a somewhat puzzling phenomenon in that most of the data taken in 2001 shows excellent agreement, but a few points are found to be extremely discrepant. The reason for this may be errors in the source catalogue used for photometry.

Maximum was reached in summer 2002 and since then the comet has declined sharply in brightness.

 CCD observations in a 10 arcsecond aperture by:

 


Última actualización 22/05/2003
Por M.R.Kidger