Hale-Bopp Visual Lightcurve

Womack, Maria; Curtis, O.; Lastra, N.; Pinto, Olga Harrington; Rabson, D. A.; Wierzchos, K.; Cox, T.; Rivera, I.; Mentzer, C.; Ruffini, Nicholas; Jackson, C.; Micciche, A.

doi:10.26007/xbsh-x639

Cited by 2 publications

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“…The original apparent magnitudes and those at all steps outlined in this paper underwent full panel review with the NASA Planetary Data Systems Small Bodies Node and are publicly archived (Womack et al 2018). All data reduction was performed using the ICQSplitter program, which is available for download on GitHub.…”

Section: Pre-perihelion Post-perihelion Correctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We present our open source software package ICQSplitter (Curtis et al 2020), which was used to develop these results and is discussed in Appendix 1. This serves as the companion paper to our archive submission with the NASA Planetary Data Systems Small Bodies Node archive (Womack et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tabulated values of the composite phase function are at this website: http://asteroid.lowell.edu/ comet/dustphase.html and stored at NASA PDS(Womack et al 2018). …”

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confidence: 99%

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The visual lightcurve of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) from 1995-1999

Womack¹,

Curtis²,

Rabson³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The long-term brightness evolution of the great comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) presented a remarkable opportunity to study the behavior of its coma over four years. We used approximately 2200 total visual magnitudes published in the International Comet Quarterly taken from 17 observers during the period of 1995 July -1999 September to create a secular lightcurve. In order to account for observer differences, we present a novel algorithm to reduce scatter and increase precision in a lightcurve compiled from many sources. It is implemented in a publicly available code, IC-QSPLITTER. This code addresses the differences among observers by using a selfconsistent statistical approach, leading to a sharper lightcurve, and improving the precision of the measured slopes. To first order, the comet's lightcurve approximately follows a r −4 response for both pre-and post-perihelion distances. Interestingly, the pre-perihelion data are better fit with a fifth-order polynomial with inflection points

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Section: Pre-perihelion Post-perihelion Correctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The visual lightcurve of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) from 1995-1999

Womack¹,

Curtis²,

Rabson³

et al. 2020

Preprint

Self Cite

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The Visual Lightcurve of Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale–Bopp) from 1995 to 1999

et al. 2021

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The great comet C/1995 O1 (Hale–Bopp) presented a remarkable opportunity to study its long-term brightness over four years. We used 2240 observations published in the International Comet Quarterly from 17 observers during 1995 July to 1999 September to create a secular lightcurve. In order to account for observer differences, we present a novel algorithm to reduce scatter and increase precision in a lightcurve compiled from many sources. It is implemented in a publicly available code, ICQSPLITTER, which uses a self-consistent statistical approach. To first order, the comet’s lightcurve approximates an r −4 response for both pre- and postperihelion distances. The preperihelion data are better fit with a fifth-order polynomial with inflection points at 4.0, 2.6, 2.1, and 1.1 au, some of which are associated with physical changes in the coma. Outbursts may have occurred a few days before perihelion and at ∼2.2 and 7.4 au postperihelion. The Afρ values derived from the final magnitudes are consistent with an r −1.5 dependence on heliocentric distance and are within a factor of 2–4 of those derived from spectroscopy and narrowband photometry. We present correlation equations for visual magnitudes and CO and H2O production rates that are consistent with the preperihelion brightness increasing due to CO outgassing until about 2.6–3.0 au from the Sun and then are strongly correlated with H2O production rates. We also present two generalized correlation equations that may be useful for observation planning and data analysis with the James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories.

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Hale-Bopp Visual Lightcurve

Cited by 2 publications

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The visual lightcurve of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) from 1995-1999

The visual lightcurve of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) from 1995-1999

The Visual Lightcurve of Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale–Bopp) from 1995 to 1999

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