Near infrared photometry of comet C/2005 E2 (McNaught)

We present results of JHK photometry for comet C/2005 E2 (McNaught). Observations were made with the OSIRIS imager at the SOAR telescope, on Sept. 26-27, 2005. The dependence of the main parameters on the angular distance from the cometary photometric nucleus is discussed. We considered concentric rings around the photometric nucleus of the comet, with the radius determined by the aperture. Integrated flux in the ring, surface brightness, J-H and H-K color indices, and mean flux decay were obtained for each ring. A phometric radial profile was also obtained by tracing average values of the ace brightness for increasing values of radii in isophotes which allowed us to compute the azimuthally averaged surface brightness of the coma. The images centered on the photometric nucleus show three jets from active areas on the nucleus.