154P/Brewington

Comet 154P/Brewington was discovered visually by Howard Brewington on August 28th 1992 with a 40-cm reflector, from Cloudcroft (New Mexico). It was estimated as being magnitude 10, very small and diffuse. Visual confirmation showed the comet to be around magnitude 11.5.

By September 26th Suntoro Nakano was able to suggest that the comet was of short period and calculations by Brian Marsden gave a period of 8.65 years, which was rather shorter than the true period of 10.66 years.

Both the 1992 and the 2003 returns have been unfavorable. With a perihelion distance at 1.59AU and a relatively bright absolute magnitude 154P/Brewington could reach magnitude 7 at a favourable opposition, so it is somewhat surprising that it has not been detected previously unless it outburst in 1992, or suffered a major orbital change. The comet was recovered on August 26th 2002 by Fernanda Artigue, H. Cucurullo and Gonzalo Trancredi of the Los Molinos Observatory (Uruguay) BUSCA team.

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The light curve here is made up of CCD photometry in R with a 10" aperture (shown as m2). Seichii Yoshida suggests that there was a significant outburst in the light curve around 2002 Nov. 20th, but this is based on just one point. Due to the rather poor circumstances of the return the comet will probably only reach magnitude 10 in mid-February 2003. When the comet reaches perihelion on February 19th

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CCD observations in a 10 arcsecond aperture from:

  • Ramón Naves & Montse Campàs - MPC 213
  • Rolando Ligustri - MPC 235
  • Albert Sánchez - MPC 442
  • Josep Lluis Salto - MPC A02
  • Juan de la Cruz - MPC J87
  • Toni Climent - MPC J97

CCD aperture photometry in an aperture of 1'.1 from:

  • Rolando Ligustri

 


Última actualización 24/01/2003
Por M.R.Kidger