News - April 2001

04/30/2001

The 309^th comet discovered by SOHO received an orbit and a designation. Comet C/2001 H6 (SOHO) was found by T. Scarmato in real-time images of the LASCO coronagraph . (MPEC 2001-H44)

04/25/2001

New Discovery!: E. F. Helin, S. Pravdo, and K. Lawrence (JPL) report the discovery of a new comet on Apr. 24, 2001, in the course of the NEAT program. With the help of pre-discovery observations by LINEAR of Mar. 20, 2001, a short-periodic orbit could be calculated for the 17^m comet P/2001 H5 (NEAT). It passed its perihelion on Jan. 27, 2001, at about 2.4 AU. The orbital period is about 15 years. (IAUC 7613, MPEC 2001-H37)

04/23/2001

Four SOHO comet fragments (cf. News of 04/22/2001) have received orbits and designations: C/2001 H1 (SOHO) (Oates), C/2001 H2 (SOHO) (Leprette, Scarmato), C/2001 H3 (SOHO) (Leprette) and C/2001 H4 (SOHO) (Leprette). All are members of the Kreutz group. (MPEC 2001-H32)

04/22/2001

Comet C/2001 C1 (LINEAR) was identified with an asteroidal object - 2000 HR₈₁ - observed by LONEOS and LINEAR in April and May 2000. (MPEC 2001-H23)
Four possible comet fragments within 5 hours were found in real-time images of April 20, 2001, of the SOHO spacecraft. The comets have not been announced officially by the CBAT. (e-mail, Sungrazer Homepage)
Comet C/2001 A2 (LINEAR) is still bright after its outburst. Recent brightness estimations place the comet near 7^m. Unfortunately for mid-Europe the comet is no longer observable. If it keeps this level of brightness it will become observable again in July with maybe 5 - 6^m.

04/17/2001

Three SOHO comets received orbits and designations: Comet C/1998 V7 (SOHO) was found in archival data by M. Oates. C/2001 G2 (SOHO) was found by S. Hönig in real-time data and C/2001 G3 (SOHO) by M. Oates in real-time data. This brings the official SOHO count up to 304 discovered comets. (MPEC 2001-G34)

04/09/2001

Sebastian F. Hönig (Dossenheim, Germany) found quite a bright Kreutz sungrazing comet in SOHO C2 real-time images. The comet has not yet been announced by the CBAT. Several other possible SOHO comets reported (archival and real-time) still have to be confirmed. (S. F. Hönig's Homepage, Sungrazer Homepage)

04/05/2001

New Discovery!: On Apr. 01, 2001, the LONEOS project discovered an apparently asteroidal object. After posting the object on the NEO Confirmation Page it was reported to be cometary by J. Ticha, M. Tichy and P. Jelinek (Klet), C. E. Lopez and M. R. Cesco (El Leoncito), M. Busch and S. Klügl (Heppenheim) and J. Broughton (Reedy Creek). The comet C/2001 G1 (the 14^th comet discovered by LONEOS) is about 17^m. According to the first and very preliminary orbit the comet was discovered right at the point of perihelion at a distance of about 7.5 AU! (IAUC 7606, MPEC 2001-G03)