Abstract We report photometric observations of Comet 103P/Hartley 2 during its 2023 apparition. Our campaign, conducted from August through 2023 December, combined data from a global network of citizen astronomers coordinated by Unistellar and the Association Française d’Astronomie. Photometry was derived using an automated pipeline for eVscope observations in partnership with the SETI Institute and aperture photometry via AstroLab Stellar. We find that the comet’s peak reduced brightness, measured at G min = 10.24 ± 0.47 , continues a long-term fading trend since 1991. The decline in activity follows a per-apparition minimum magnitude increase of Δ G min = 0.59 ± 0.11 mag, corresponding to a ∼42% reduction in brightness each return. This trend implies that the comet’s active fraction has declined by approximately an order of magnitude since 1991 and may indicate that Hartley 2 is no longer hyperactive by definition. The fading is consistent with progressive volatile depletion rather than orbital effects. These results offer insight into the evolutionary processes shaping Jupiter-family comets.
Graykowski et al. (Mon,) studied this question.