Following our team's detection of a fragmentation event with comet 168P/Hergenrother on October 26, 2012, we requested via the Faulkes Telescope Education project that further observations be taken. Today, two UK Schools using the Faulkes Telescope kindly assisted in obtaining additional observations for us. The two schools (Queens College and the Dollar Academy) performed follow-up observations of this comet on 2012, Nov. 2.4, remotely through the 2m, f/10 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD of Faulkes Telescope North (Haleakala).

Stacking of 26 R-filtered exposures, 35-sec each, obtained remotely, from the Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North on 2012, Nov. 2.4, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD, under good seeing conditions, confirms the presence of a secondary nucleus, or fragment, now placed about 3.3" in PA 165 with respect to the main central condensation of comet 168P. This fragment is now fainter, compared to our previous Oct. 26.4 detection, having R magnitude about 18.7; its diameter is still about 2", but now it appears more diffuse, without a clear central condensation (this hampers a precise determination of its photocenter). This fragment appears to have developed its own tail, nearly 4" long in PA 113 (about parallel to the main tail originating from the central condensation of 168P).

Below you can see our rendition of today imaging session. Through some image processing, the tail of the fragment became easily visible.
Comet 168P
© Remanzacco Observatory

Another rendition of the same image is shown below.
Comet 168P_1
© Remanzacco Observatory
Here you can see an animation obtained using the school's imaging frames. (North to the top, East to the left). The animation covers about 25 minutes in total.

Below you can find the astrometry lines (0168P: main nucleus of comet Hergenrother, 168Pb the fragment):

0168P KC2012 11 02.42647 23 39 40.15 +36 23 36.3 15.2 N F65
0168P KC2012 11 02.43576 23 39 40.11 +36 23 45.3 15.4 N F65
0168P KC2012 11 02.44505 23 39 40.02 +36 23 54.1 15.9 N F65
0168P b KC2012 11 02.42647 23 39 40.28 +36 23 33.4 18.8 R F65
0168P b KC2012 11 02.43576 23 39 40.19 +36 23 42.5 18.6 R F65
0168P b KC2012 11 02.44505 23 39 40.10 +36 23 51.8 18.8 R F65

A blog entry (posted on their blog on Oct 31st) by the WIYN telescope group, who were testing the new ODI instrument, showed the comet with the fragment clearly. Below you can see their image obtained on October 30.
Comet 168P_2
© WIYN Observatory/ODI Instrument
Our team would like to thank Queens College and The Dollar Academy for their superb observations and we have included them in our submissions to the minor planet centre (PI at each school) and will reference their inclusion in our ongoing project to look at the dust/continuum values of this very interesting cometary event.