Abstract: | Since many years cometary ions have been observed by the authors and their coworkers in order to study the comet-solar wind
interaction. Comets with water production rates ranging from 1028(46P/Wirtanen) to 6 1030molecules s−1(C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp) have been observed. In this paper we briefly introduce the physics of the comet-solar wind interaction.
New observations of comet C/1996 Q1 (Tabur) are presented, where for the first time H2O+and CO+ions have been recorded exactly simultaneously with a two-channel system. They are compared with previous observations of
comets C/1989 X1 (Austin), 46P (Wirtanen) and 109P (Swift-Tuttle). We use a new method of Wegmann et al. (1998), based on
the MHD scaling law, to determine the water production of comet Tabur from its H2O+column density map and obtain a value of 3.3 1028water molecules s−1. Nonstationary phenomena like tail rays and so-called tail disconnections are very briefly reviewed. A movie of plasma envelopes
observed in the light of OH+in comet 1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) is presented on the attached CD-ROM.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |