Until the start of April 2002 a surprisingly small number of observations was published of this comet. Just 24 observations of 5 members of the german comet section and 135 international observations could be used for the analysis. These show that the comet experienced a different brightness evolution before and after perihelion: a steep increase in brightness before perihelion and a considerably slower decrease afterwards. The evolution is well described by the following formulae:
indicating a maximum brightness of 9.9m during the second half of September. The apparent coma diameter was around 1.5' (120.000 km) at first, increasing to a maximum of 3.0' (210.000 km) at the end of August, thereafter showing a continous, slow decrease to 1.2' (80.000 km) until mid-March 2002. The coma was moderately to well condensed with a maximum of DC 4-5, remaining constant for many weeks. Only during the recent weeks it showed a decrease to DC 3. Again a special feature of this comet was the elliptical coma, mentioned by several observers. Visual tail sightings (up to 0.1°) were extremely rare.
Total Brightness and Coma diameter
Andreas Kammerer
