News - October 2008

2008 October 21

New Discovery!: R. S. McMillan (LPL, Univ. of Arizona) reports his discovery of a new comet on Oct. 19, 2008, in the course of the Spacewatch Survey. A. R. Gibbs (Mt. Lemmon) confirmed the cometary nature of the 18^m object. Prediscovery observations by Spacewatch of Sep. 20, Oct. 6 and 10, 2008, were also found. The orbit for comet P/2008 U1 (McMillan) shows perihelion already on May 12, 2008, at about 2.5 AU. The period is about 8.1 years. This is the 40^th comet for Spacewatch. (IAUC 8997, subscription required, MPEC 2008-U29)
K. Kadota (Ageo, Saitama-ken, Japan) has recovered comet P/2001 J1 on Oct. 15, 17, and 18, 2008, using a 25-cm reflector and CCD. H. Abe (Yatsuka-cho, Shimane-ken, Japan) also confirmed the comet on Oct. 18. The 16^m comet P/2008 T5 (NEAT) will pass perihelion on Nov. 6, 2008, at about 0.95 AU. The correction to the prediction on MPC 54170 is -0.6 day. (IAUC 8996, subscription required)

2008 October 09

G. V. Williams (SAO) and Syuichi Nakano (Sumoto) have confirmed the suggestion by M. Meyer that the newly discovered comet P/2008 T3 is identical to the long-lost comet D/1892 T1 = 1892e = 1892 V (Barnard). Wiliams has extracted 41 positions of 1892 from literature and re-reduced these for analysis. The resulting orbit for comet P/2008 T3 = 1892 T1 (Barnard-Boattini) shows perihelion on Oct. 25, 2008, at about 1.1 AU. The period is 5.8 years. Nakano notes that the comet has made 20 revolutions since 1892 and passed 0.3 - 0.4 AU from Jupiter in 1922, 1934 and 2005. (IAUC 8995, subscription required)

2008 October 08

An apparently asteroidal object discovered on Oct. 1, 2008, by Rob D. Cardinal (Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, Priddis) with the University of Calgary 0.50-m Baker-Nunn camera has been found cometary after posting on the NEO Confirmation Page. W. H. Ryan (Magdalena Ridge), G. Hug (Scranton), Y. Ikari (Moriyama) and J. Young (Table Mountain) confirmed the cometary nature of the 14.5^m object. The first orbit for comet C/2008 T2 (Cardinal) shows a perihelion at about 1.2 AU on Jun. 16, 2009. The comet may then reach 8^m but will not be favourably placed. (IAUC 8993, subscription required, MPEC 2008-T88)
New Discovery!: A. Boattini reports his discovery of a new comet on Oct. 7, 2008, in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey. Boattini confirmed the comet with exposures taken at Mt. Lemmon. Prediscovery observations by LINEAR of Sep. 28 and 30, and by Catalina of Sep. 29, were also found. The first orbit for comet P/2008 T3 (Boattini) indicates perihelion on Oct. 25, 2008, at about 1.1 AU. The period is about 5.9 years. This is the 63^rd for Catalina.
M. Meyer (Limburg) suggests that this comet is identical with the long lost comet D/1892 T1 (Barnard). Backward integrations of the orbit show almost perfect identity. (IAUC 8993, subscription required, MPEC 2008-T89)
New Discovery!: R. E. Hill reports his discovery of a new comet on Oct. 8, 2008, in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey. Boattini confirmed the comet with exposures taken at Mt. Lemmon. The first orbit for comet P/2008 T4 (Hill) indicates perihelion on Sep. 21, 2008, at about 2.4 AU. The period is about 9.2 years. This is the 64^th for Catalina. (IAUC 8994, subscription required, MPEC 2008-T90)

2008 October 03

New Discovery!: A. Boattini reports his discovery of another new comet on Oct. 01, 2008, in the course of the Mt. Lemmon Survey. R. E. Hill (Mt. Lemmon) was able to confirm the comet the next day. After the object was placed on the NEO Confirmation Page P. Birtwhistle (Great Shefford), R. Ligustri (Talmassons), J. E. McGaha (Tucson), R. Holmes and H. Devore (Charleston), J. Young (Table Mountain), E. Guido, G. Sostero, and P. Camilleri (remotely from near Mayhill) also confirmed the cometary nature. Prediscovery images by Spacewatch of Sep. 2, and 21, were also detected. The orbit for the 17.5^m comet P/2008 T1 (Boattini) indicates perihelion already on Feb. 25, 2008, at about 3.0 AU. The comet made a close approach to Jupiter (0.03 AU) in April 2003. This is the 22^nd comet for the Mt. Lemmon Survey. (IAUC 8988, subscription required, MPEC 2008-T30)

2008 October 01

Further SOHO comets (all named SOHO):

Designation  Group   Discoverer     Notes
C/2008 O6    ---     H. Su
C/2008 O7    ---     B. Zhou
C/2008 P2    Kreutz  H. Su
C/2008 P3    Kreutz  M. Kusiak
C/2008 P4    Kreutz  M. Kusiak
C/2008 P5    Kreutz  T. Hoffman
C/2008 P6    Kreutz  Z. Xu

Official SOHO comets: 1519 (MPEC 2008-T10, MPEC 2008-T11)