News - July 2002
07/31/2002
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New Discovery!:
S. Pravdo and K. Lawrence (JPL) report the discovery of a new comet in the course
of the NEAT program on July 30, 2002. The
15m comet was confirmed by several observers after posting it on the
NEO Confirmation Page. No orbit for comet 2002 O5 is yet available. This is
NEATs 23rd comet discovery.
(IAUC 7942)
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The first MPC orbit of comet C/2002 O4 (Hönig) changes the first orbit
only slightly.
(MPEC 2002-O45)
07/30/2002
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A first and preliminary orbit for comet C/2002 O4 (Hönig) (not yet official) shows a perihelion on Oct. 02,
2002, at about 0.77 AU. The comet is an intrinsically faint object and may become as
bright as 8m or 9m in August/September. The comet moves quite
fast as it is close to Earth; the minimum distance will be reached in mid-August
with about 0.65 AU. The comet is favourably placed for mid-European observers,
reaching nearly the zenith in August. After that it will move lower in the evening
sky until perihelion followed by an ascent in the morning sky.
(OAA/CS)
07/28/2002
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Sebastian has provided an online version of the
discovery story of comet 2002 O4.
(Comets Mailing List)
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New Discovery!:
On July 22, 2002, Sebastian Hönig (Dossenheim, Germany) discovered a new
comet visually. Due to Moon and bad weather he was not able to confirm it. His
rough positions were distributed to other observers to confirm and finally
K. Kadota (Ageo, Saitama, Japan) was able to find the comet on July 27. The
12m comet was then confirmed by other observers after posting on the
NEO Confirmation Page. No orbit for comet 2002 O4 is yet available. A
search ephemeris is available on the
NEO CP. An
image by M. Jäger (Austria) taken on July 27, 2002, 20:40 UT with a 200/300
Schmidt camera, 8 min on TP hyp. can be found here.
This is the first visual amateur comet discovery from Germany since C/1946 K1
(Pajdusakova-Rotbart-Weber). Sebastian has already found nearly 20 SOHO comets.
He also maintains a website. (IAUC 7939,
e-mail)
07/22/2002
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12 SOHO comets received orbits and designations: C/2002 O1 (SOHO) (found by
R. Matson), C/2002 O3 (SOHO) (S. Hönig) and C/2002 O3 (SOHO) are
Kreutz group comets which were observed as a triplet. C/2001 L11 (SOHO) is
an archival Kreutz group comet found by X. Leprette.
C/2001 K11 (SOHO)
(Kracht), C/2001 L10 (SOHO) (M. Oates), C/2001 R7 (SOHO) (M. Oates),
C/2001 V6 (SOHO) (R. Kracht) and C/2001 X10 (SOHO) (M. Oates) are
members of the Meyer group. This
group has now 29 members.
C/2001 Q8 (SOHO), C/2001 R8 (SOHO) and C/2001 R9 (SOHO)
were found by R. Kracht and are members of the
Kracht group which now contains
7 members.
SOHO has now found 491 new comets.
(MPEC 2002-O33,
MPEC 2002-O34,
MPEC 2002-O35)
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Images of the fragments A - T of comet 57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte can
be found here.
(Comets Mailing List)
07/21/2002
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Comet C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang) received the permanent periodic comet
designation 153P/Ikeya-Zhang. It is now the numbered periodic comet with
the longest period. The comet was observed in 1661 and 2002, and probably in
877 and 1273.
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Y. R. Fernandez, D. C. Jewitt, and S. S. Sheppard (University of Hawaii)
have detected 18 additional components (designated C-T) of comet
57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte in images taken on July 17.5 and 18.4 UT.
The R-band magnitudes range from 20.0 to 23.5m. The components are
delayed with respect to the perihelion time for component A from +0.012 days to
+0.354 days. (IAUC 7935)
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Three additional SOHO comets received orbits and designations: C/2001 C7 (SOHO)
was found by R. Kracht and is the 24th member of the
Meyer group. C/2001 D1 (SOHO)
was also found by R. Kracht and might be a fifth member of the
Kracht group although there
are quite substantial differences in the orbital elements. C/2002 N1 (SOHO)
was found by X. Leprette and is a member of the Kreutz group. SOHO has now found
479 new comets.
(MPEC 2002-O27,
B.G. Marsden pers. comm.)
07/20/2002
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On Jul 12, 2002, the NEAT program
reported a possible NEO candidate which appeared cometary and was found by
the MPC to be moving on the line of variation and having the motion as comet
57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte. Images by NEAT of July 1 did not reveal
this fainter companion to the main comet. The orbit of this " component B"
are consistent with that of the main comet with a delayed perihelion time of
0.19 day. Comet 57P experienced a brightness outburst of about 5m
at its last apparition in 1996. (IAUC 7934)
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The archival search for members of the
new comet groups has
produced a lot of new candidates. Currently four possible members of the
Meyer group and three possible members of the Kracht group are waiting for
orbits. The comets were detected by R. Kracht and M. Oates. A list of not yet
officially announced SOHO comets can be found here.
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Five SOHO comets received orbits and designations: C/2002 M3 (SOHO) (found
by R. Kracht), C/2002 M4 (SOHO) (X. Leprette), C/2002 M5 (SOHO)
(T. Hoffman), C/2002 M6 (SOHO) and C/2002 M7 (SOHO) (both R.
Matson). All five are members of the Kreutz group. SOHO has now found 476 new
comets.
(MPEC 2002-N41)
07/03/2002
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Today the CONTOUR spacecraft was launched on its mission to comets 2P/Encke (Nov. 12,
2003) and 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (June 19, 2006). More information about this
mission can be found on the CONTOUR Homepage.
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New Discovery!:
On Jun 13, 2002, the NEAT program discovered
an asteroidal object which was placed on the NEO Confirmation Page due to its
unusual motion. S. Pravdo later noted the cometary appearance of the object.
Pre-discovery observations by LINEAR of Jun 06, 2002, were also found. The comet
C/2002 L9 (NEAT) will pass perihelion in April 2004, at about 7.0 AU. The
17.5m comet is NEATs 22nd comet discovery.
(IAUC 7931,
MPEC 2002-N15)