Comet 2002 O4 Hoenig, August 18, 2002.
Combination of 3, 3-minute images, SBIG ST-8E CCD.
8" f/6.3 schmidt-cassegrain at prime focus.
Another 2 bright comets were discovered within days of each other during July. The first of these was comet 2002 O4 Hoenig, discovered on July 22. The comet brightened steadily until mid August, when it reached magnitude 7.5. After that time, increasing Earth distance countered the decreasing solar distance as the comet approached perihelion, and as a result the brightness changed little over the next few weeks until early September. After then, the comet faded rapidly. Also at this time, the comet was quite low in the predawn skies, as a result there were few observations made during this time. Those observations that were made indicated that the comet faded dramitically as the comet approached perihelion.
At this time the comet was around magnitude 9.5, with a coma around 3' across. No tail was visible in a 10" telescope.
Comet 2002 O4 Hoenig, August 11, 2002.
Combination of 3, 3-minute images, SBIG ST-8E CCD.
8" f/6.3 schmidt-cassegrain at prime focus.
Same as the above image only processed with a median filter to minimise the stars.
This night the comet had brightened to around magnitude 8.2. The coma was now around 6' across, with the outer coma quite faint. In a 10" telescope, a very faint tail some 12' long was visible. I also made observations on August 18, however these are archived along with many other comet images, on a CD that has become corrupted and are not accessible.