The paper by Chrystian Luciano Pereira et al. has just been published in the Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society reporting .
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A new orbit for 29P had shortly before been derived by Shantanu Naidu of JPL making an accurate prediction possible. The orbit was based on 623 precise astrometric positions measured on 2.0-m telescope images obtained as part of the BAA's MISSION 29P and Faulkes Telescope Project and which were supplied to JPL in October 2022. It turned out that the MPC orbit based on >40,000 positions was very inaccurate. The occultation result indicated a bias in the MPC-derived position projected on the sky amounting to >1,300 km making previous predictions largely doomed to failure.
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The current orbital still uses the same astrometric data together with the occultation result reported in this paper. It is time we updated the 2.0-m astrometry ahead of a predicted occultation visible from Europe on 2025 Feb 05. Since Pereira et al.'s success, there have been four further stellar occultations by 29P reported.
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The MISSION 29P webpages have been updated - here's the latest lightcurve:
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In addition the COMET CHASERS team has obtained deep images (2.5 arcmin square) showing the developing complex outburst coma created by multiple outbursts, which began on November 21. You can also see an outer halo about 2 armin across that originates from the previous series that started on November 02.?
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Clear skies,
Richard
Richard Miles