Rotational lightcurves of inactive comet nuclei

Summary: determination of best-fit rotational lightcurves for inactive or nearly inactive comet nuclei using phase dispersion minimization from sparse photometry

Procedure: identify all known comets for which a minimum number of observations exist where extendedness parameters indicate [mostly] stellar appearances and/or a minimum heliocentric distance criterion is satisfied; retrieve calibrated photometry for a given filter; compute equivalent absolute magnitudes for each apparent magnitude measurement (i.e., for R=Δ=1 AU and phase angle = 0, using best-fit H,G parameter values where available); perform PDM analysis on resulting data

Observation metadata requirements:

• filter

L1 and L2 product requirements:

• photometry

Observation geometry requirements:

• R
• Delta
• phase angle

L3 outputs:

• extendedness parameters