Outburst of 155P/Shoemaker 3
ATel #13199; Dennis Bodewits (Auburn U.), Michael S. P. Kelley (U. Maryland), Bryce Bolin (Caltech/IPAC), Quanzhi Ye (U. Maryland), on behalf of the Zwicky Transient Facility Collaboration; Xing Gao (Xingming Observatory), Francois Kugel (Observatoire de Chante-Perdrix, Dauban)
on 17 Oct 2019; 19:38 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Comets
Credential Certification: Dennis Bodewits (dennis@auburn.edu)
We report on a possible outburst of comet 155P/Shoemaker 3 from images acquired with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) operated on the 1.2-m Oschin Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory (ZTF; Bellm et al 2019, PASP, 131, 018002). We measured the comet's brightness in circular apertures of 20,000 km in radius, and estimate the g-r color to be 0.56 mag. Photometry is reported in the table below. Error bars are 1-sigma absolute uncertainties.
Between UT 2019 Oct. 10.466 and Oct. 12.467, ZTF observed a sudden increase from r mag = 16.62 ± 0.06 mag to 15.52 ± 0.05 mag. This brightness increase persisted in ZTF observations acquired on subsequent nights. Photometry conducted using a 0.4-m telescope at Observatoire de Dauban, Banon, France (MPC code A77), yields V= 16.4, 16.1, and 14.9 mag on UT Oct. 04.15, Oct. 11.15, and Oct. 16.17 (5.8" radius aperture, equivalent to 7,800 - 7,700 km, NOMAD catalogue). Follow-up observation made using the 0.6-m Ningbo Bureau of Education and Xinjiang Observatory Telescope (NEXT) at Xingming Observatory, China, yielded r=14.82 ± 0.11 mag on UT 2019 Oct. 14.89 (20,000 km radius aperture), independently confirming the brightness increase with respect to the baseline.
Taken together, it appears that comet 155P/Shoemaker 3 underwent an outburst of at least r-mag 1.10 ± 0.08 between UT 2019 Oct. 11.15 and 2019 Oct. 12.47. After this event, we observed a peak brightness of r mag = 14.82 ± 0.11 on Oct. 14.885 after which the brightness started to decrease.
| Date UT |
Mag |
dMag |
Band |
Mag r |
dMag r |
| 2019 Oct. 1.441 |
16.72 |
0.04 |
r |
16.72 |
0.04 |
| 2019 Oct. 1.451 |
16.72 |
0.04 |
r |
16.72 |
0.04 |
| 2019 Oct. 5.486 |
16.60 |
0.04 |
r |
16.60 |
0.04 |
| 2019 Oct. 7.474 |
17.38 |
0.03 |
g |
16.82 |
0.04 |
| 2019 Oct. 10.466 |
17.18 |
0.05 |
g |
16.62 |
0.06 |
| 2019 Oct. 12.467 |
16.08 |
0.04 |
g |
15.52 |
0.05 |
| 2019 Oct. 14.455 |
15.23 |
0.03 |
r |
15.23 |
0.03 |
| 2019 Oct. 14.885 |
15.31 |
0.10 |
g |
14.75 |
0.11 |
| 2019 Oct. 14.885 |
14.89 |
0.08 |
r |
14.89 |
0.08 |
| 2019 Oct 15.463 |
15.15 |
0.04 |
r |
15.15 |
0.04 |
Part of this work makes use of observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1440341 and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Los Alamos National Laboratories, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. The operation of Xingming Observatory was made possible by the generous support from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
|
| |
