Coma imaging of comet P/Brorsen-Metcalf at Calar Alto in late July to mid August 1989

Comet P/Brorsen-Metcalf was observed on 1989/07/28+30 and on 1989/08/04+12(+14) with the 3.5 m telescope and the 0.8 m Schmidt camera at Calar Alto/Spain. The images exhibit a narrow plasma tail pointing into anti-solar direction. On 1989/07/30 a triple tail was found which can be interpreted as tail ray event. The coma isophotes show prominent asymmetries with the nucleus located on the tailward side of the isophote foci and with a slightly higher brightness in the Northern Hemisphere of the coma. A strong curved jet feature was detected in the coma on 1989/07/30. The jet extended at least 30,000 km into the sunward coma hemisphere. The rotation period of about 1.3 days, estimated from the curvature of the coma jet, needs verification by other observations.