It is worth noting that the comet is one of those suspected to have undergone nuclear splitting according to the list of Marcos & Marcos [Dynamically correlated minor bodies in the outer solar system, MNRAS, 474, 838, 2018 February]. They link it to 2013 N5 (P/PanSTARRS).

Regards,

Jonathan Shanklin
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: 07 August 2022 09:20
To: baa-comet@simplelists.com
Subject: [BAA Comets] Outburst of 285P/Linear

On August 6 Mike Kelley reported a >4 magnitude outburst of this faint periodic comet:

https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/message/30804

The current MPC predicted magnitude is 19.6 but the comet was observed last night at 15.0.

 From ZTF data the outburst occurred somewhere between July 31.2 and Aug 3.3. Astrometry reported on MPEC 2022-P82 suggests it was in outburst on Aug 1.3:

https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K22/K22P82.html

Peter Carson and I imaged the comet last night from Fregenal de la Sierra, Spain and Chelmsford, UK respectively. I got a magnitude of 15.0 using Astrometrica with a 9 arcsec radius aperture and Peter reported
14.8 in a 9.1 arcsec aperture (both unfiltered IMX455 vs Gaia G).

This comet is well placed for us in the evening sky although the Moon is now interfering. It will be interesting to see how this outburst develops. Please observe it if you can.

Nick.
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