M. Burizoda

Annotation:

This paper presents the results of an investigation of the inner-coma morphology of the short-period comet 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini– Kresák based on CCD observations carried out in 2017 with the AZT-8 telescope at the Hisar Astronomical Observatory of the Institute of Astrophysics, National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan. The study aimed to identify low-contrast structures in the inner coma and assess the stability of their spatial orientation during the observing period under consideration. The Larson–Sekanina digital image-processing algorithm was applied to enhance the contrast of image features and isolate azimuthal inhomogeneities in the brightness distribution. Processing of the complete observational data set revealed a persistent, dominant dust jet emanating from the region of the comet’s central condensation. To characterize the spatial orientation of the detected structure, the position angle of the jet was measured in the processed images. During the observing period, the position angle varied from 281° to 293°, with a mean value of approximately 287.5°. No significant changes in the jet direction were detected over the time interval considered. The relatively narrow range of the measured position angles indicates the stable nature of the observed morphological structure. These results indicate that the dominant dust jet maintained its spatial orientation and, consequently, that the comet exhibited stable localized dust activity throughout the observations.

Keywords: 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák, comets, inner coma, morphology, jet, Larson-Sekanina algorithm, CCD observations.