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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2958      2013 Oct 26 12.55UT
Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise,  Basingstoke,
Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074
INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK      Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk
WORLD WIDE WEB                         http://www.theastronomer.org
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SOLAR ACTIVITY
Peter Meadows:
Although solar activity has been quite low over the last few months,
activity has increased again with two reasonably large groups on the Sun at
the moment.  Three sunspots were seen with the protected naked eye  on 2013
Oct 24 from these two groups, AR 1875 and 1877.  They are both complex in
nature and thus ideal for generating solar flares.  As they are near the
central meridian, these two groups will be easily visible with suitable
equipment and solar filters for the next few days.

COMET C/2012 X1 (LINEAR)
Having passed conjunction with the sun in August at elongation < 25 deg,
this comet had been following a slow, steady brightness increase according
to H_10 = 8.0 from discovery (from Socorro, NM, USA, on 2012 Dec. 08.38)
until the last astrometry in 2013 June (when it was around total mag 16.5
(CCD).  

Now pulling slowly away from the sun (elongation 35-40 deg), H. Sato, Japan
has reported an outburst in brightness of this comet comet from a 60-s CCD
exposure taken on Oct. 20.507 UT with a 0.51-m f/6.8 astrograph near
Mayhill, NM, U.S.A.; the comet shows a morphology similar to the outburst of
comet 17P in 2007, a disk-like coma 85" across of total mag 8.5 (as measured
within a circular aperture of diameter 85".2) with a brighter centre about
10" across.  The predicted H_10 magnitude would be around 14 now.

Quanzhi Ye, University of Western Ontario; Xing Gao, No. 1 Senior High
School of Urumqi, China; and Man-To Hui, Guangzhou, China, report on their
imaging of an expanding coma of the comet, taken with the 0.35-m SASP
telescope at Xingming Observatory at Oct 21.96 UT.  The unprocessed data
show a highly circular coma with a radius measured to be 90".


On the morning of 2013 October 26 Nick James reports the coma diameter has
increased from 203 to 264 arcsec in the last two days. At the comet's
distance of 2.95 AU this corresponds to an increase in projected diameter of
around 65,000 km/day.
A comparison of the diameters is here:
http://www.nickdjames.com/Comets/2013/2012x1_comparison_ndj.jpg

SUPERNOVA 2013fj IN PGC 68419 (F. CIABATTARI ET. AL.)
2013fj  Sep  7.83   22 15 28.51  +15 34 04.1  16.7   3  “W    5  “S
A. Zanutta: spectrum Sept 13 Asiago 1.82-m Copernico Telescope shows it to
be type-Ia, about four days after maximum. The expansion velocity deduced
from the Si II 635.5-nm absorption is about 11000 km/s. 

Guy M Hurst