Hi Michael,

This was mentioned by Qicheng Zhang in the comet-ml discussion here:

https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/topic/c_2023_a3_showing_brightness/105847786

One of the points was that, at that time, the tail was projected behind
the comet and so it would have been included in the magnitude estimates.
I think there were lots of mechanisms at play during this period which
help to explain the lightcurve. None of them seem to support a theory
that they comet is fragmenting.

Thanks for your observations too. I plan to update the lightcurve later
this weekend.

Nick.

On 19/07/2024 23:56, mmatti@westnet.com.au wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>
>
> What about the role of orbital plane crossing?
>
> This effect seems to have been ignored
>
> This occurred in mid April, coinciding with the extremely low phase angle.
>
> Thus we had a rare double enhancement of the comets brightness.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael