Flare-up of comet 285P/LINEAR

[Ross Wilkinson]

This is a comet which I'd never expected to see, as it was only predicted to peak at magnitude 20 at the start of next year. However in the last few weeks it's undergone a remarkable outburst, and has been reported at around magnitude 15 - this chart shows the transformation: http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0285P/2023-mag.gif

The comet is stil more than 2 AU from the Sun (it never gets closer than the orbit of Mars) and 1.5 AU from Earth, so it's quite a surprise that it has flared up now.

As it's well-placed (in Ophiuchus), I couldn't resist the opportunity to have a look for it. I couldn't detect it in any of my 1-min subs, but after I'd applied my "invisible comet" process to 50 minutes' worth of data it came out clearly:

Stack of 50x 1-min from Mx716 camera on C8 operating af f/3.5.