Small Apparent Outburst of Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
ATel #15017; Michael S. P. Kelley (U. Maryland), Kritti Sharma (IITB), Vishwajeet Swain (IITB), Harsh Kumar (IITB), Varun Bhalerao (IITB), G. C. Anupama (IIA), Sudhanshu Barway (IIA) on behalf of the Zwicky Transient Facility and GROWTH India Collaborations
on 6 Nov 2021; 13:06 UT
Credential Certification: Bryce Bolin (bolin.astro@gmail.com)
We report on a small apparent outburst of comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, as seen in Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF; Bellm et al. 2019, PASP, 131, a8002) and GROWTH-India Telescope data. Photometry within 5" radius apertures calibrated to the PS1 photometric system are listed in the table below. Previous ZTF photometry of comet 29P suggest coma colors of g-r=0.56 and r-i=0.24 mag, which are used to produce an effective r-band lightcurve. The data indicate an outburst strength of -0.32+/-0.05 mag, occurring between 2021 Nov 02 22:04 and Nov 03 07:45 UTC. Additional context and further observations of the event are available at the MISSION 29P website by R. Miles (British Astronomical Association), which suggest the outburst occurred between 2021 Nov 03 06:34 and 13:02 UTC, in agreement with our observations. Together, the onset time is narrowed to a 1.2 hr period between Nov 03 06:34 and 07:45 UTC.
Date Tel. Filter m unc r
(UTC) (mag) (mag) (mag)
---------------- ---- ------ ------- ------- -------
2021-11-02 21:31 GIT r 15.15 0.01 15.15
2021-11-02 22:04 GIT g 15.65 0.01 15.09
2021-11-03 07:45 ZTF g 15.33 0.05 14.77
2021-11-03 08:55 ZTF r 14.80 0.03 14.80
2021-11-03 22:21 GIT r 14.93 0.01 14.93
2021-11-03 22:26 GIT g 15.44 0.01 14.88
2021-11-04 07:59 ZTF i 14.66 0.02 14.90
2021-11-04 21:29 GIT r 15.04 0.01 15.04
2021-11-04 22:01 GIT g 15.61 0.01 15.05
Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-2034437 and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Trinity College Dublin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and IN2P3, France. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW.
The GROWTH India Telescope (GIT) is a 70-cm telescope with a 0.7 degree field of view, set up by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) with funding from DST-SERB and IUSSTF. It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (Hanle), operated by IIA. We acknowledge funding by the IITB alumni batch of 1994, which partially supports operations of the telescope. Telescope technical details are available at https://sites.google.com/view/growthindia/
