News - December 2006

2006 December 29

New Discovery!: A. R. Gibbs reports the discovery of a new comet on Dec. 26, 2006, in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey. After placement on the NEO Confirmation Page M. Tichy and J. Ticha (Klet) and K. Sarneczky (Konkoly Observatory) were able to confirm the cometary nature. The 18.5^m comet C/2006 Y2 (Gibbs) will pass perihelion according to the first and very preliminary orbit on Dec. 30, 2006, at about 1.4 AU. It is probably of short period. This is the 42^nd comet for the CSS. (IAUC 8787, subscription required, MPEC 2006-Y56)

2006 December 22

E. J. Christensen reports his recovery of comet P/1999 DN₃ on Dec. 16, and 17, 2006, at Mt. Lemmon. Comet P/2006 Y1 (Korlevic-Juric) is about 20.5^m and will pass perihelion on May 8, 2008, at about 3.9 AU. The correction to the prediction on MPC 54168 is Delta(T) = -2.0 days. (IAUC 8786, subscription required)

2006 December 20

New Discovery!: On Dec. 16, 2006, the Catalina Sky Survey reported the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object with unusual motion. Almost simultaneously the same object was reported as a new comet by E. J. Christensen in the course of the Mt. Lemmon Survey. The object was then designated 2006 YC, because the cometary description by Christensen got lost. The 19.5^m comet C/2006 YC (Catalina-Christensen) will pass perihelion on Sep. 25, 2007, at about 4.2 AU. This is the 41^st comet for Catalina and the 16^th for Christensen. (IAUC 8785, subscription required, MPEC 2006-Y15, MPEC 2006-Y26)

2006 December 13

New Discovery!: An apparently asteroidal object, discovered on Dec. 11, 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 P. Birtwhistle (Great Shefford) and A. R. Gibbs (Mt. Lemmon). The 19^m comet C/2006 X1 (LINEAR) will pass perihelion according to the first and preliminary orbit on Jun. 24, 2007, at about 6.0 AU. This is the 172^nd comet for the LINEAR survey. (IAUC 8783, subscription required, MPEC 2006-X41)
Further astrometry showed comet P/2006 W1 (Gibbs) as of short period. The period is 12.7 years; perihelion was already on Mar. 25, 2006. (MPEC 2006-X40)
Comet P/2006 W2 = P/2001 WF₂ has received the permanent designation 182P/LONEOS.

2006 December 10

Further SOHO comets (all named SOHO):

Designation  Group   Discoverer     Notes
C/2003 B3    Kreutz  H. Su
C/2003 G5    Kreutz  H. Su 
C/2006 T10   Kreutz  B. Zhou
C/2006 U8    Kreutz  T. Scarmato
C/2006 U9    Kreutz  S. Farmer
C/2006 U10   Meyer   T. Hoffman     72^nd member of the Meyer group
C/2006 U11   Kreutz  H. Su
C/2006 U12   Kreutz  T. Chen
C/2006 U13   Kreutz  H. Su

Official SOHO comets: 1211. (MPEC 2006-X25, MPEC 2006-X26)

2006 December 05

An apparently asteroidal object discovered on Nov. 13, 2006, in the course of the LINEAR survey and then designated 2006 VZ₁₃ has been found to be cometary at about 18.5^m on R-band CCD images by C. W. Hergenrother on Dec. 1, and 2, 2006, with the University of Arizona's 1.54-m Kuiper reflector. Comet C/2006 VZ₁₃ (LINEAR) will pass perihelion on Aug. 11, 2007, at about 1.0 AU. It may then reach 10^m. This is LINEARs 171^st comet discovery. (IAUC 8781, subscription required, MPEC 2006-W03, MPEC 2006-X16)