News - October 2006

2006 October 30

New Discovery!: An apparently asteroidal object, discovered on Oct. 19, 2006 in the course of the Spacewatch survey, has been found to be cometary after posting on the NEO Confirmation Page by E. Christensen and A. Gibbs (Mt. Lemmon) and J. Young (Table Mountain). The 19.5^m comet C/2006 U6 (Spacewatch) will - according to the first and preliminary orbit - pass perihelion on Jun. 05, 2008, at about 2.5 AU. This is Spacewatch's 36^th comet discovery. (IAUC 8769, subscription required, MPEC 2006-U79)
New Discovery!: Alex R. Gibbs reports his discovery of a new comet on Oct. 28, 2006, in the course of the Mt. Lemmon Survey. The 20.5^m comet was confirmed by J. Young (Table Mountain) after posting on the NEO Confirmation Page. Comet C/2006 U7 (Gibbs) will - according to the first and preliminary orbit - pass perihelion on Feb. 23, 2008, at about 3.5 AU. It might be of short period. This is the 7^th comet discovery for the Mt. Lemmon survey. (IAUC 8769, subscription required, MPEC 2006-U80)

2006 October 29

New Discovery!: E. J. Christensen (LPL, Univ. of Arizona) reports his discovery of a new comet on Oct. 27, 2006, in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey. The 18^m comet was confirmed by several observers after posting on the NEO Confirmation Page, including G. Hug (Eskridge), G. Sostero and E. Guido (Remanzacco), B. L. Stevens (Las Cruces), and J. Young (Table Mountain). Comet C/2006 U5 (Christensen) has - according to the first and preliminary orbit - already passed perihelion on Aug. 31, 2006, at about 2.6 AU. It might be of short period. This is Catalina's 36^th and Christensen's 14^th comet discovery. (IAUC 8768, subscription required, MPEC 2006-U69)

2006 October 28

Recovery!: R. H. McNaught and D. M. Burton report the recovery of comet P/1991 V1 at Siding Spring on Oct. 26, and 27, 2006. With about 18^m the comet is clearly fainter than expected. Comet P/2006 U4 (Shoemaker-Levy) will pass perihelion on Nov. 25, 2006, at about 1.1 AU. The period is about 7.5 years. The correction to the prediction in MPC 48384 and Comet Handbook 2006 is +8.0 days. (IAUC 8767, subscription required)

Further SOHO comets (all named SOHO):

Designation  Group   Discoverer     Notes
C/2006 R3    Meyer   H. Su          71^st member of the Meyer group
C/2006 R4    Kreutz  T. Hoffman 
C/2006 S7    Kreutz  R. Matson
C/2006 S8    Kreutz  R. Matson
C/2006 S9    Kreutz  R. Matson
C/2006 S10   Kreutz  R. Matson
C/2006 S11   Kreutz  R. Matson

Official SOHO comets: 1192. (MPEC 2006-U63)

2006 October 24

Recovery!: R. Stoss (Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Heidelberg and Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca) reports the recovery of comet P/2001 K1 (NEAT) by J. L. Ortiz and A. Mora on Oct. 23, and 24, 2006, with the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope at La Palma. The 22.5^m comet P/2006 U3 (NEAT) will pass perihelion on May 26, 2008, at about 2.5 AU. The period is about 7.5 years. The correction to the prediction in MPC 54169 is -0.4 day. The recovery confirms the proposed identity of this comet with a comet found by Stoss in Palomar Sky Survey images of May 14, 1955. (IAUC 8765, subscription neccessary)
Comet C/2006 M4 (SWAN) seems to have experienced a photometric outburst. Observations of Oct. 24.75 UT show it at 4.5^m, 1.5^m brighter than a few days ago. (Comets Mailing List)

2006 October 23

Recovery!: J. V. Scotti (Univ. of Arizona) reports the recovery of comet P/1995 A1 (Jedicke) with the Spacewatch telescope on Oct. 22, and 23, 2006. The essentially stellar looking object (but 'softer' than stars of similar brightness) is about 21^m. The correction to the prediction in MPC 51823 was -1.0 day. Comet P/2006 U2 (Jedicke) will pass perihelion on Dec. 02, 2007, at about 4.1 AU. (IAUC 8763, subscription neccessary)

2006 October 21

New Discovery!: An apparently asteroidal object, discovered on Oct. 19, 2006, in the course of the LINEAR survey has been found to be a comet after it was placed on the NEO Confirmation Page by several observers. The comet displays a rather long tail. The 17^m comet P/2006 U1 (LINEAR) passed perihelion according to the first and preliminary orbit on Aug. 28, 2006, at about 0.5 AU. It is an intrinsically faint object. The period is about 4.3 years. This is the 170^th comet for the LINEAR survey. (IAUC 8763, subscription neccessary, MPEC 2006-U42)

2006 October 12

An apparently asteroidal object discovered on Dec. 21, 2005, by the LINEAR survey and designated 2005 YW has been found to be cometary by L. Buzzi (Varese), E. Guido and G. Sostero (near Mayhill), R. Ligustri (Udine), and G. Masi and S. Foglia (Ceccano). The now 15^m comet C/2005 YW (LINEAR) will pass perihelion on Dec. 7, 2006, at about 2.0 AU. It will brighten slightly until the end of 2006. This is LINEARs 169^th comet discovery. (IAUC 8760, subscription neccessary, MPEC 2006-T62, MPEC 2005-Y43)

2006 October 08

Comet P/2006 T1 (Levy) is of short period. Further astrometry has confirmed this suspicion. The period is about 5.4 years. From negative observations of September it seems to be clear that the comet has undergone an outburst shortly before discovery and that it was probably mainly inactive in earlier years. (MPEC 2006-T47)

2006 October 06

Visual observations of comet C/2006 T1 (Levy) have confirmed a total magnitude of about 9.5. Additional astrometry has also confirmed the initial orbit; however, a short-period solution is still possible. An independent visual discovery has been reported by Shigheki Murakami.
Additional astrometry for comet P/2006 S4 (Christensen) shows it to be of short period. It has already passed perihelion on May 27, 2006, at about 3.0 AU. The period is about 15.5 years. (MPEC 2006-T24)

2006 October 03

New Discovery!: David H. Levy (Tucson) reports his visual discovery of a new comet in the vicinity of Saturn on Oct. 02, 2006. After posting on the NEO Confirmation Page numerous observers were able to confirm the new comet. A visual estimation by A. Hale (Cloudcroft) puts the comet at 9.8^m. The first and preliminary orbit for comet C/2006 T1 (Levy) shows perihelion on Oct. 09, 2006, at abot 1.1 AU. This is David Levy's 22^nd comet discovery and the second amateur comet discovery in 2006, and the first visual one. For observers in Central Europe the comet is visible in the morning sky. It will become fainter as well as getting lower in the sky. (IAUC 8757, subscription neccessary, MPEC 2006-T21)