Astron. Astrophys. 333, 746-752 (1998)

5. Conclusions

We have recovered the periodic comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle using the Keck 10-m telescope on 07 March 1997 when the comet was at a distance of r = 4.43 AU; the observation was confirmed 3 nights later by means of observations with the ESO NTT. At the time of recovery, the comet was not active. From a new orbital solution, based on previous apparitions and on the recovery image, we were able to identify pre-recovery images of the comet at r = 6.74 AU, and upper limits to the brightness on 2 additional dates. By the time of our last observation, at 3.48 AU, the comet was still inactive. From the average m(1,1,0) found from the data (), we have determined that the rotationally averaged nucleus radius to be = 1.8 0.2 km, with a minimum ellipticity = 1.5.

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1998

Online publication: April 20, 1998
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