News - September 2000

09/27/2000

With the aid of pre-discovery observations by LINEAR of Aug. 26, 2000, a first orbit was published for comet 2000 S1. Comet P/2000 S1 (Skiff) already passed its perihelion on July 08, 2000, at about 2.5 AU. The orbital period is about 17.1 years. The comet was discovered near its nominal brightness maximum and should not become brighter. (IAUC 7497, MPEC 2000-S60)

09/26/2000

New Discovery!: Brian A. Skiff discovered a new comet in the course of the LONEOS program on Sep. 24, 2000. No orbit is available yet for the 15^m comet 2000 S1. A preliminary ephemeris is given on the NEO Confirmation Page. (IAUC 7496)

09/18/2000

New Discovery!: An asteroidal object, discovered on Sep. 3, 2000, by LINEAR was found to be cometary by D. Balam, M. Tichy and R.H. McNaught in follow-up observations after posting the object on the NEO Confirmation Page. The 18^m periodic comet P/2000 R2 (LINEAR) already passed its perihelion on Sep. 12, 2000, at about 1.4 AU. The orbital period is about 6.3 years. The comet is an instrinsically very faint object. (IAUC 7492, MPEC 2000-S04)

09/08/2000

A cometary object observed by LINEAR on Sep. 06, 2000, was identified by T. Spahr and D. W. E. Green with comet P/1991 T1 = 1991z = 1991 XXII. Comet P/2000 R1 (Shoemaker-Levy 5) was about 0.6° northwest of the prediction corresponding to a correction of the perihelion time of about -1.4 days. The 18^m comet passed its perihelion already in August. (IAUC 7488)

09/06/2000

Observations of an asteroidal object by LINEAR of Sep. 1 and 3, 2000, were identified with 97P/Metcalf-Brewington by G. V. Willians (Minor Planet Center). Due to a close approach to Jupiter (< 0.11 AU in 1993) the comet was situated 1.1° from the prediction. The nominal correction of the perihelion time is +3.5 days. The comet was recovered visually by Howard Brewington in 1991, which was the first observation after the comets first apparition in 1906. The comet experienced an outburst in 1991 so the brightness evolution at the current apparition is hardly predictable. (IAUC 7487)

09/01/2000

The asteroidal object 2000 OF₈ which showed a cometary orbit revealed a small coma according to observations by O. R. Hainaut and C. E. Delahodde (ESO) and D. D. Balam (National Research Council of Canada). The new orbit for comet C/2000 OF₈ (Spacewatch) shows a perihelion on Aug. 05, 2001, at about 2.2 AU. The comet may reach 13^m but will then be positioned in the southern sky. (IAUC 7484, MPEC 2000-Q43)
Two SOHO comets received orbits and designations: C/2000 Q1 (SOHO) is a non-Kreutz comet discovered by James Danaher, C/1998 F2 (SOHO) is a Kreutz comet discovered in archival data by Maik Meyer. (IAUC 7448, MPEC 2000-Q35, Q42)