The Sodium Emission of comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) observed at KenTing and Lulin observatory

ATel #13886; Zhong-Yi Lin (IANCU), Chiahui Wang (TCFSH), Wing-Huen Ip (IANCU), Kuo-Pin Huang (NMNS),Chi-Sheng Lin (IANCU), Hsiang-Yao Hsiao (IANCU), Wei-Jir Hou(IANCU), Hung-Chin Lin(IANCU)
on 22 Jul 2020; 02:24 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Comets
Credential Certification: Zhong-Yi Lin (zylin@astro.ncu.edu.tw)

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Optical spectra on July 10 taken by the 20cm telescope, Aply 600 spectrograph and Atik 460ex CCD at KenTing observatory showed the strong sodium emission at 5890~5896A around the central nucleus. Follow-up observations on July 11 by the Lulin 15cm telescope, LISA spectrograph and QSI 660 CCD confirmed this identification. The sodium emission in cometary spectra is rare and only a few comets, like comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake), and C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp), showed this emission. The sodium atoms might be the neutral atoms emitted directly from the cometary nucleus or more likely due to neutral atoms released by dust particles in the coma and dust tail (Cremonese et al. 2002). Unfortunately, the observing window was too small to obtain the image of the sodium tail. Follow-up observations of C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), both imaging and spectroscopy, are highly recommended to investigate the form of the sodium emission. This work is based on observations made with 20cm telescope at KenTing observatory (MPC code: D34) operated by physics department, NTU, Taiwan and Lulin 15cm telescopes at Lulin observatory (MPC code: D35), operated by Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan. These spectra images (red line refers to July 10, and blue one is obtained on July 11) of comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) can be found at website http://www.astro.ncu.edu.tw/people/zylin/C2020_F3.html?fbclid=IwAR1lCLTsSTDWnKpSF--FDVZsjjXtsa59QHgjgtrv9INC_irO_BUqngkXxbU

C/2019 Y4 (Altas) images