News - September 2004

2004 September 28

New Discovery!: A new comet has been discovered on Sep. 26, 2004, by M. E. Van Ness in the course of the LONEOS survey. J. E. McGaha (Tucson) and J. Young (Table Mountain) also noted the objects cometary appearance after it was posted on the NEO Confirmation Page. According to the first and preliminary orbit the 18^m comet C/2004 S1 (Van Ness) will pass perihelion in early December at about 0.7 AU. Unfortunately this is an intrinsically faint comet and it is not likely to become brighter than 15^m. This is LONEOS' 27^th comet discovery. (IAUC 8412, MPEC 2004-S81)
Comet P/2004 NL₂₁ (LINEAR) received the permanent designation 160P/LINEAR). (MPC 52766)
Comet C/2004 K3 (LINEAR) has entered the SOHO/LASCO C3 field of view. It is visisble since Sep. 28, entering arount 19:18 UT. The comet is quite inconspicuous, nealy starlike and without a tail. Also comet C/2004 R2 (ASAS) is predicted to cross C3 starting from Oct. 05, and passing C/2003 K4 by only 2 degrees a few days later, but it is unclear whether C/2004 R2 will become bright enough or survive to be visible at all.

2004 September 18

New Discovery!: An apparently asteroidal object, discovered on Jul. 15, 2004, by the LINEAR survey and which was then designated 2004 NL₂₁ has been found to be cometary by R. H. McNaught (Siding Spring) on Sep. 6, 2004, with about 16^m and a short tail. After the announcement M. Meyer (Kelkheim) was able to detect the comet in images of the NEAT survey of September 1996, also with about 16^m and a short tail. This means that comet P/2004 NL21 (LINEAR) will become comet 160P. Perihelion is in October 2004, at about 2.1 AU. The period is about 8 years. This is LINEARs 146^th comet discovery. (CBET 87, MPEC 2004-S17 MPEC 2004-S18)

2004 September 16

New Discovery!: A new comet, discovered on Sep. 13, 2004, by the NEAT survey, could be linked to an assumed ordinary main-belt minor planet found by the LINEAR survey on Sep. 10, and 13, 2004. After posting the object on the NEO Confirmation Page several observers noted the cometary appearance. The 19^m comet P/2004 R3 (LINEAR-NEAT) already passed perihelion in May 2004, at about 2.1 AU. The period is about 7.6 years. This is LINEARs 145^th and NEATs 45^th comet discovery. (CBET 83, MPEC 2004-S02)

2004 September 09

New Discovery!: The comet found by the ASAS survey has been confirmed. C/2004 R2 (ASAS) was found to be 10.9^m visually by A. Hale (Cloudcroft). A prediscovery image by ASAS of Sep.01, 2004, was also found. The first orbit shows a close perihelion at about 0.11 AU on Oct. 07, 2004. The object is intrinsically faint and it is quite likely that it will not survive the perihelion passage. If it survives it may get as bright as 2^m close to the sun and observable in the SOHO imagery. For central European observers it may only be visible after perihelion in the evening sky, fading fast. (IAUC 8402, MPEC 2004-R48)

2004 September 08

Possible New Discovery!: On Sep. 03, 2004, the Automated All Sky Survey (ASAS), a program to monitor stars down to 14^m, found a possible new comet. The 11^m object has been reported to the CBAT but not yet officially announced. Images can be found at the ASAS alert page. (vsnet, Comets Mailing List)

2004 September 06

The first orbit for comet P/2004 R1 (McNaught) shows that the comet has just passed perihelion at about 0.99 AU. It has a period of about 5.4 years. This is the 14^th comet which carries the name McNaught. (IAUC 8400, MPEC 2004-R24)

2004 September 05

New Discovery!: A new comet has been discovered by R. H. McNaught (Siding Spring, Australia) on September 02, 2004. No orbit available yet for the 17.5^m comet 2004 R1. A search ephemeris can be generated at the NEO Confirmation Page. It is possible that the comet is of short period. (IAUC 8398)
Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) has also been found in images taken by M. Jäger and G. Rhemann (Austria) on May 15, 2004, from Namibia. The comet was visible in images of comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) close to its tail. (e-mail)

2004 September 04

Two pre-discovery images of comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) taken on May 27, 2004, by Vello Tabur (Australia) show the comet at a magnitude of 12.5^m - 13^m. This means that the comet has not experienced a recent outburst but was discoverable a long time before its discovery by Don Machholz. Analyses of semi-accurate positions by R. Bouma obtained from these images show that the comet seems to be a dynamically "old" comet -- something that can be taken as a good sign regarding its further brightness evolution. (Comets Mailing List)

2004 September 02

Further SOHO Kreutz group comets: C/2004 P2 (SOHO) (J. Sachs), C/2004 P3 (SOHO) (D. Evans), C/2004 P4 (SOHO) (X. Leprette) and C/2004 P5 (SOHO) (H. Su). Current official SOHO score: 826 comets. (MPEC 2004-R02)

2004 September 01

Fred L. Whipple, the father of the "dirty snowball" comet model died on August 30, 2004, shortly before its 98^th birthday. Whipple also was the discoverer of six comets. A short portrait can be found at BBC. (Comets Mailing List)