AbstractComet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) with a maximum magnitude of 6 mag was the brightest comet in 2000. The 24" telescope on NCU campus was used to observe its coma behavior in June and July of 2000 as it approached perihelion. The observations were carried out using the comet filters designed by the European Space Agency for the ground-based observational program of Comet Wirtanen (target comet of the Rosetta mission). Comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) ended up disrupting into many small fragments near

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... helion. We are in the process of analyzing the time variations of the cometary dust coma and dust tail to examine the physical condition prior to the destruction of the nucleus of this intriguing comet. An image processing method will be developed to trace small-scale structures in the dust tail.