Although the total magnitude of the comet seems to be holding fairly steady at around 8.3, I find that the degree of condensation of the coma has been quite variable, ranging between 2 and 4.  Part of this may be due to the steadily brightening skies as we approach mid-summer, but I am sure some is intrinsic to the comet.

Regards,

BAA Comet Section visual observations co-ordinator
https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/

-----Original Message-----
From: baa-comet@simplelists.com <baa-comet@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of Nick James
Sent: 17 May 2020 11:47
To: baa-comet@simplelists.com
Subject: [BAA Comets] C/2017 T2 coma structure

Hi Andrew/Peter/Denis,

The discussion has changed from C/2019 Y4 to C/2017 T2 so I have changed the subject line. Your director gets *very* annoyed when discussions on one comet are under the subject heading of another! It makes finding things later very difficult.

Anyway, C/2017 T2 has had an interesting inner coma structure for quite some time. My last decent image was on April 25 (I've been distracted by
Y4 recently) but the comet clearly showed an outflow of material to the north which turned back down the tail. The attached image shows that.
The orientation has changed in the three weeks compared to Peter's image but the feature is remarkably stable.

Nick.

On 17/05/2020 11:38, Peter Carson wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Here’s my image from last night (16^th ). I’m only seeing one obvious
> tail although it is over 30’ long. There’s something going on in the
> coma, its not evenly bright. Its appears to have a brighter sector
> towards the NE which ties up with the PA of your suspected second
> tail. How far out from the centre of the coma were you seeing your suspected second tail?
>
> All the best

To unsubscribe from this list please go to http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=ntoG9BwxVwQIsh4pfXUZpcaYUJvXnTrD
This email and any attachments are intended solely for the use of the named recipients. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, copy or distribute this email or any of its attachments and should notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has taken every reasonable precaution to minimise risk of this email or any attachments containing viruses or malware but the recipient should carry out its own virus and malware checks before opening the attachments. UKRI does not accept any liability for any losses or damages which the recipient may sustain due to presence of any viruses. Opinions, conclusions or other information in this message and attachments that are not related directly to UKRI business are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of UKRI.