My F4 Bradfield image of 3 May, 2004, shows a 1.5 arc minute antitail. Juan Lucruz http://www.geocities.com/juan_lacruz/ was the first to point it out in my original image posting. I have since reprocessed the image to better illustrate the antitail.
In almost all cases, a comet's tail points away from the Sun, blown out by the solar wind. However, in rare cases, dust around the comet's orbit leads to a Sun-pointing 'antitail'. This occurs when the Earth happens to pass through the plane of the comet's orbit.
Images at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm
I welcome comments from everyone. Thanks for looking.
Clear skies,
Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL
In almost all cases, a comet's tail points away from the Sun, blown out by the solar wind. However, in rare cases, dust around the comet's orbit leads to a Sun-pointing 'antitail'. This occurs when the Earth happens to pass through the plane of the comet's orbit.
Images at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm
I welcome comments from everyone. Thanks for looking.
Clear skies,
Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL
