by Akkana Peck
Nick Martin wrote:
I noted that the pseudonucleus appeared almost stellar. Using a magnification of X240 there appeared to be a small, few seconds of arc, long patch of material attached to and almost as bright as the pseudonucleus.
I haven't been able to see a stellar feature in the head of Linear S4, but on Saturday night, I did observe the bright nuclear area to be elongated more or less in the direction of the tail (i.e. there seemed to be a bulge behind the coma). The odd shape of the psuedonucleus and coma can be seen in my sketch at http://www.shallowsky.com/images/sketch/linear-s4.jpg
As I observed it from a road pullout in the Santa Cruz mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean (in a separate attempt to find a spot with a fairly dark northwest :-), in a 12.5" dobsonian at magnifications ranging up to about 200x, the tail appeared split; the main tail appeared to curve off clockwise, while a shorter, much fainter tail went straight. I looked for an ion tail but could not see one; the glow just ahead of the pseudonucleus appeared possibly somewhat pointed, but I could not see anything extending forward from the comet.
The sketch is from 10:15 PDT (0515UT), and the separate bright spot in the coma area is a background star which the comet happened to be passing at that time.
