The german comet section received only three visual observations of the comet C/1998 M2 (LINEAR). For the analysis 40 international observations were added. This comet, too, seems to show an unusual brightness evolution. Current observations can be represented best on the assumption that the heliocentric magnitude of this comet remained approximately constant over the entire appearance! This yields brightness parameters of m0=12.5m, n=0, and a maximum brightness of 14.0m. Whereas the apparent coma diameter decreased from 1.0' to 0.5', the absolute diameter remained constant (90,000 km). The coma was relatively well condensed with a DC-value of 4.
Total Brightness and coma diameter
Andreas Kammerer
