The secondary tail of Comet 1976 VI West The physical characteristics of the secondary tail of Comet 1976 VI Westare described. Many striae in the tail do not converge to the head. Theyare well described by synchrones of the secondary tail ejected from theprimary tail. The latter consists of dust emitted from the head bybursts, implying that a great burst occurred in the head at perihelionpassage, emitting a large amount of dust. After 3.2 days the main partof the secondary tail was formed, in which many bright striae existed.From the photographic density of the bright striae, the total mass ofthe dust ejected from the head at perihelion is estimated at 9.6 x 10 tothe 12th g. The duration of the burst at perihelion may be 20,000 s;thus, the production of dust is about 5.5 x 10 to the 8th g/s during theburst.
