SPACEWATCH® Observed First Comet Discovered by WISE Spacecraft

2010 Feb 8 - SPACEWATCH® observed the first comet discovered by the WISE spacecraft, P/2010 B2. The images were taken by J. V. Scotti on 2010 Feb 8 at 11:14:00, 11:19:41, and 11:25:02 UTC with the SPACEWATCH® 1.8-m telescope on Kitt Peak (in these negative views, the comet is the fuzzy object near the center of each frame).  Each pass has a FOV of 3.27 arcmin N-S and 3.08 arcmin E-W. East is up and North is to the right due to the way we scroll drift scans on the screen.  Effective exposure time of the drift scanning at this declination is 141 sec. As the drift scanning is synchronized to the sidereal rate, the stars are round and the comet is trailed slightly.