News - July 2002

07/31/2002

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 15^m 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 23^rd comet discovery. (IAUC 7942)
The first MPC orbit of comet C/2002 O4 (Hönig) changes the first orbit only slightly. (MPEC 2002-O45)

07/30/2002

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 8^m or 9^m 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

Sebastian has provided an online version of the discovery story of comet 2002 O4. (Comets Mailing List)
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 12^m 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

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)
Images of the fragments A - T of comet 57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte can be found here. (Comets Mailing List)

07/21/2002

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.
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 23.5^m. The components are delayed with respect to the perihelion time for component A from +0.012 days to +0.354 days. (IAUC 7935)
Three additional SOHO comets received orbits and designations: C/2001 C7 (SOHO) was found by R. Kracht and is the 24^th 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

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 5^m at its last apparition in 1996. (IAUC 7934)
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.
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

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.
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 17.5^m comet is NEATs 22^nd comet discovery. (IAUC 7931, MPEC 2002-N15)