Searching for comets encountering Jupiter. Second campaign observations and further constraints on the size of the Jupiter family population^*

¹ Astronomical Observatory, Box 515, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
² Depto. de Astronomia, Facultad de Ciencias, Tristan Narvaja 1674, 11200 Montevideo, Uruguay

Send offprint request to: C.-I. Lagerkvist

Received: 7 June 1995
Accepted: 19 January 1996

Abstract

The results from the second campaign of the search for comets in the vicinity of Jupiter are presented. As in the previous campaign, we find no comets. This result is used to calculate upper limits on the size of the Jupiter family population of comets. The numbers found are the same as in the previous campaign, but have the advantage that the lack of complete discovery at the limiting magnitude is taken into account. We find that for comets brighter than nuclear B magnitude 14 (corresponding to a radius of 8 km) the population consist of up to 210 members. This value is extrapolated to fainter magnitudes (smaller sizes).