Early detection of (6478) Gault's new tail
ATel #12468; Lee, Chien-Hsiu (NOAO)
on 3 Feb 2019; 18:07 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Comets
Credential Certification: Chien-Hsiu Lee (lee@noao.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Asteroid, Comet
Referred to by ATel #: 12450
We report early detection of the new tail of (6478) Gault. V-band imaging from the ALFOSC camera onboard the Nordic Optical Telescope taken on January 20th, 2019 UT clearly shows two tails from Gault, one long trail spanning more than 3 arcminutes at a positional angle of 293 degrees, first reported by the ATLAS team (CBET 4594, 4597), and the second, new tail reported by the ZTF team, confirmed by the LOT and ARC telescopes on January 28/29, 2019 UT. Our observations indicate that the new tail has already started as early as January 20th, at least one week before the ZTF detection. The Nordic Optical Telescope image of both tails can be found at https://lchjoel1031.github.io/images/ImagingWithNewTail.jpeg. In addition, no fragment/debris was detected from the Nordic Optical Telescope imaging. Follow-up of Gault, both imaging and spectroscopy, are highly encouraged to investigate the cause of the cometary activity.
This work is based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated by the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias.
