Observations of Bright Comets in CARA Archives I: Years 2002–2006

We have launched the Cometary Archives for Amateur Astronomers, CARA, aiming at coordinated collection of homogeneous, long-time based, continuous data set of bright comet observations. The project is based on a collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers. The archived quantity is a set of the photometric Afρ, measured in I, R or red continuum 647/10 nm filters. To derive coma profiles, Afρ is measured in at least different radii selected from a set of 50,000, 25,000, 12,500, 6,000 and 3,000 km. The data are free to download for registered users, special requests are available upon personal contact. We also provide aspecific code with a tutorial for the aperture photrometry of comets. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the observing methods, tools, software supports and web resources of project CARA.

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