  Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak (41P), a Jupiter family comet with three
discoveries over about 100 years, is in a short-periodic orbit around the Sun
with the perihelion close to the Earth distance. The 2017 apparition of 41P
offered a long-lasting visibility of the comet at a close distance to Earth.
The four month-long imaging campaign with the 2 m telescope at the Mount
Wendelstein Observatory was aimed at characterizing dust activity and nucleus
properties of the comet. Using a new analysis method of the inner coma flux, we
derived a small mean equivalent radius of about 600 m for the nucleus with an
unusual body axes ratio that is higher than two. The nucleus rotation axis was
determined from the geometric appearance of coma structures, which were
enhanced in the images. A long-lasting coma fan was produced by an extended
region at high latitudes on the slowly rotating nucleus, whereas isolated jets
originated from narrow, low latitude active regions on the nucleus. The dust
activity of 41P, despite being difficult to quantify exactly because of an
unknown phase function correction for the comet, indicates a steep radial
profile that falls off with an increasing distance from the Sun. Colors and
flux profiles provide evidence for dust fragmentation in the inner coma of the
comet. A singular outburst event created various dust structures in the coma.
The outburst came from an extended region on the nucleus and was due to either
a landslide on the nucleus or a sudden material release from a subsurface
pocket of volatile ice.
