C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) near-nucleus photometry Nick James (02 Sep 2025 03:24 UTC)

C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) near-nucleus photometry Nick James 02 Sep 2025 03:24 UTC
This comet is nicely placed in the morning sky and could become quite
bright in late October:

https://britastro.org/section_news_item/c-2025-a6-lemmon

The current visual equivalent total magnitudes on COBS show quite a lot
of scattter:

https://cobs.si/comet/2606/

This is to be expected since the comet is diffuse and the total
magnitude is quite sensitive to sky conditions and the equipment used.

If you observe the comet and use Astrometrica to do your astrometry
please use Gaia G and a photometric aperture near to 9 arcsec. We should
then have a good quality, consistent set of measurements of the
magnitude of the inner coma. This doesn't reflect the total magnitude of
the comet but it will allow us to see if anything interesting is going
on since the dataset is consistent between observers and not too
affected by sky conditions. It is also a straightforward measurement
that comes for free with the astrometry that you are already doing.

We've done this for other comets, such as 12P and C/2023 A3 and the data
has been quite interesting.

https://britastro.org/section_news_item/12p-pons-brooks-lightcurve
https://britastro.org/section_news_item/c-2023-a3-observing-campaign

If you would like to contribute please send me your ADES and photometry
files. Please send them as attachments so that they don't get garbled by
your mail client.

The lightcurve so far, with my data only, is attached. Currently it is a
very nice fit with very little scatter.

Nick.