This catalogue is UNDER PERMANENT COMPLETION! Please either check my homepage for status messages or ask for regular updates. This catalogue and any data of this catalogue can only be distributed with this file.Any usage of the data must include the this catalogue as its source. 1. Used sources: --------------------------------------------- * Kronk, G. W.: "Cometography - Vol. I: Ancient - 1799", 2000. * Kronk, G. W.: "Comets - A Descriptive Catalog" * Machholz, D.: "A Decade Of Comets" * Rudenko, M.: "Catalogue of Cometary Discovery Positions" in ICQ 8, No. 4, (Oct. 1986), p.117..129. * Vsekhsvyatskii, S. K.: "Physical Characteristics of Comets" * "Catalogue of Cometary Orbits 2001" * IAU - Circulars * Minor Planet Circulars (MPEC) * Private Communication with discoverers * ICQ - International Comet Quarterly * Other historic sources (e.g. biographies, articles, etc.) * Kazumi Akiyama (data on Japanese discoveries) * Maciej Reszelski (data on Polish discoveries) * Kazimieras Cernis (data on Lithuanian discoveries and discoveries in the Republics of the former Soviet Union) * Doug Biesecker, http://sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov 2. Format ------------- 01-12 Short designation 13-26 Date of discovery (format YYYY_MM_DD.DDD) 27 Blank 28-34 Rightascension (2000.0) (format hh mm.m) 35 Blank 36-41 Declination (2000.0) (format ddd mm) 42 Blank 43-46 Elongation in deg and sky (E - evening, M - morning) (format dddS) 47 Blank 48 Discovery method: V - visual, P - photographic, C - CCD 49-51 Aperture of the instrument in cm 52 Instrument (ICQ-Code) 53-55 Magnification 56-57 Focal ratio 58 Blank 59-62 Diameter of the comet in arcmin (format mm.m) 63 Blank 64-67 Brightness in mag 68 Blank 69-71 Geographical place of the discovery as country abbreviation, SAT stands for Satellite 72 Blank 73-75 IAU Station Code 76 An asterisk indicates that the station code is not exactly identical with the place of discovery but sufficient enough for calculating the local observation circumstances. 77 Classification as amateur A 78 Rediscovery R 79-83 Source of discovery announcement: XXXX IAUC AJXXX The Astrophysical Journal NXXXX Astronomische Nachrichten 84 Blank 85 An x means, that there is more information on this discovery in the comnotes.txt file 86 Blank 87-90 Corresponding page number in "Cometography" (Kronk). The capital indicates the volume (A = Vol. I, B = Vol II, etc.) 91 Blank 92-139 Name of the comet, in brackets the name of the rediscoverer or the real discoverer For multiple discoveries the entry is splitted into multiple lines. 3. Notes ----------- 3.1 Brightness and diameter The values for brightness and diameter come partly from the statements of the discoverers or the discovery announcements, but were also calculated and taken from subsequent observations. When using these values for analyses one always have to be aware that brightness indications for comets are often not reliable. There are several reasons for this. For ancient discoveries the brightness values are nothing more than educated guesses, which were made in modern times to fit the verbal descriptions of these times. Even statements like "the comet was as bright as Vega" have no meaning compared to todays definition of the total (visual) brightness of a comet. Often such statements referred only to the central condensation or the false nucleus of the comet. But even the brightness indications of todays comet discoveries are not values without uncertainties. Faint comets are mostly detected by photographic and now by electronic means (CCD). Especially for CCD discoveries of the big surveys (e.g. LINEAR, LONEOS etc) this results in differences of up to even 3 or 4 mag! The simple cause of such differences lies in the search strategy of the big surveys which work with short integration times and thus only recording the innermost condensation of the comet. An additional effect is the different wavelength sensitivity which also causes the CCD magnitudes to become often fainter than the visual ones. Photographic exposures also show such an effect, but not in such extent. The brightness values in the Catalogue can be divided into 6 classes. 1) brightness estimations for ancient discoveries, which reach even into the 20th century, 2) brightness estimations for photographic discoveries, 3) brightness estimations for visual discoveries in the 20th century and later, 4) brightness estimations for CCD discoveries, 5) brightness estimations for satellite discoveries, and 6) values for brightness and diameter estimated shortly after a photographic or CCD discovery by visual means. The latter values are taken from the ICQ. THESE VALUES HAVE NO SPECIAL INDICATION AS VISUAL ESTIMATIONS! It is even possible that the visual estimations which were made shortly after the original discovery are not reliable since the comet may have experienced an outburst in brightness. Although the new "Cometography" by Gary Kronk does in most cases not contain values of the discovery brightness for the ancient comets anymore I have kept in most cases the values of his previous "Comets - A Descriptive Catalogue". ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND THAT THE UNCERTAINTY FOR THESE VALUES MAY BE AS HIGH AS SEVERAL MAGNITUDES! 3.2 Positions and elongations Positions prior to comet C/1991 X2 (Mueller) have been converted into equinox 2000.0. Where no information was available on the exact discovery date it was assumed to be "dd.2" for discoveries in the morning and "dd.8" for discoveries in the evening. The dates for historic discoveries, i.e. before the era of astronomical telegrams or announcements, were also taken from Kronk. For non-visual discoveries after C/1991 X2 (Mueller) the astrometric data were used. If the comet was discovered visually, then its discovery position was re-calculated. All values were obtained using the latest orbital elements and the GUIDE software. 3.3 Name vs. discoverer The names for the comets used in the Catalogue are the official names as they are given in the "Catalogue of Cometary Orbits". Names in brackets are credited discoverers whose name was not officially attached to the comet due to several reasons. THEY ARE NOT OFFICIAL AND SHOULD NOT BE USED WHEN INDICATING A COMET! First, the official naming of comets starts in 1760. Discoveries prior that year bear no name (Anonymous) except some periodic comets which were identified later. Names in brackets are the names of the discoverers as they were credited then. They were taken also from Kronks "Cometography". Second, there are some periodic comets which were discovered several times before the periodic nature was established. Then the name of the original discoverer is also given in brackets. (There is also a small group of names which refer to the calculator of the orbit and not to the original discoverer: Crommelin, Encke, Halley, and Lexell.) Third, the modern surveys have a clear impact on the comet naming. Here no name is given in brackets since in most cases it is not possible to identify a person behind the discovery. A special case is the SOHO spacecraft, a solar observatory in space which observes the sun in several wavelenghts. It has discovered now more than 380 comets (end of 2001), mostly small Kreutz sungrazers, which did not survive perihelion. The images of the two coronagraphs are freely available on the Internet shortly after they were taken and a lot of discoveries were made by amateurs and professional astronomers by simply inspecting the images. Fainter comets were found by software search algorithms, too. All these comets have been named "SOHO". I decided to add the names of visual discoverers of these SOHO comets in brackets - maybe a bit of vanity since I have discovered some of these comets by myself. Comets which were discovered by the automated search algorithm got no credit. Information about the original discoverer is taken from the IAUCs and Doug Biesecker. This table gives the comet names which are names of teams or facilities instead of human beings. Search programs / Observatories Catalina Catalina Sky Survey (USA) BATTERS Bisei Asteroid Tracking TElescope for Rapid Survey (Japan) IRAS Infrared Astronomical Satellite (1983) LINEAR LIncoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (USA) LONEOS Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (USA) NEAT Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (USA) ODAS OCA-DLR Asteroid Survey (France/Germany) SMM Solar Maximum Mission Spacecraft (1980 - 1989) SOHO SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (1996 - present) with the discovery instruments LASCO - Two coronagraphs with the majority of discoveries SWAN - UV imager, 3 discoveries SOLWIND Spacecraft (1979 - 1985) SPACEWATCH Spacewatch Survey (USA) Tsuchinshan Tsuchinshan Observatory (China) 4. Abbreviations ------------------ a) Instrument keys Follows the ICQ: "Keys to Codes used in Tabulated Observation Format". They can be found at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/icq/ICQKeys.html b) Used country codes The used country codes are taken from the international standard ISO 3166 (except SAT for satellite discoveries). ARG - Argentina ARM - Armenia AUS - Australia AUT - Austria BEL - Belgium BRA - Brazil CAN - Canada CHE - Switzerland CHL - Chile CHN - China CZE - Czech Republic DEU - Germany DNK - Denmark ENG - England ESP - Spain FIN - Finland FRA - France GRC - Greece HUN - Hungary ITA - Italy IRN - Iran JAM - Jamaica JPN - Japan KAZ - Kazakhstan KOR - Korea LTU - Lithuania MDG - Madagascar MEX - Mexico NLD - The Netherlands NOR - Norway NZL - New Zealand PER - Peru PHI - Phillipines POL - Poland PRT - Portugal REU - Reunion ROM - Romania RUS - Russia SAT - Discovery via Satellite SVK - Slovakia SWE - Sweden TKM - Turkmenistan UKR - Ukraine URU - Uruguay USA - United States of America UZB - Uzbekistan ZAF - South Africa c) IAU Station Codes The IAU station codes are taken from http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/ObsCodes.html In some cases station codes were chosen whose coordinates were reasonably close to the discovery location. These are indicated with an asterisk (*) following the staion code. 5. Contact ------------ If you find mistakes or addendums to the catalogue, please give me a note. Maik Meyer Johann-Strauss-Str. 26 D-65779 Kelkheim GERMANY email: maik@comethunter.de URL: http://www.comethunter.de