SPACEWATCH® Confirms Comet Observed by WISE Spacecraft.

2010 Jun 15 - SPACEWATCH® observed an object recovered by WISE which shows a well-developed tail. Comet 237P was re-discovered/recovered by the orbiting WISE satellite. At initial discovery, it was the apparently asteroidal object 2002 LN13 (discovered then by LINEAR). R. S. McMillan used the SPACEWATCH® 1.8-m telescope on 2010 Jun 15 to comfirm the cometary nature of the object as indicated by WISE. The composite image was assembled by J. V. Scotti. The shifted and co-added comet image has 418 seconds effective exposure, and the stars have 139 seconds exposure. The narrow tail can be seen to extend almost 3 arc minutes toward the WSW. In the image, North is at the top, and East to the left. Once displayed, click on the image to reverse the view from negative to positive, and vice versa.