News - October
10/29/2002
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New Discovery!:
On Oct 14, 2002, the LINEAR survey
discovered an asteroidal object. P. Birtwhistle (Great Shefford, U.K.) was
able to detect a small coma which was confirmed later by T. B. Spahr (Mt. Hopkins).
The 16.5m comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) will pass perihelion
according to the first and preliminary orbit in April 2004, at about 0.6 AU. The comet
may then reach naked eye visibility nearly the same time as C/2001 Q4 (NEAT). For
mid-European observers this comet is conveniently placed until February 2004. After
that it is mainly a southern hemisphere target. LINEAR has now found 97 comets.
(IAUC 8003,
MPEC 2002-U43)
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New Discovery!:
On Oct 04, 2002, the NEAT survey and on Oct. 7, the
LINEAR survey discovered an asteroidal
object which was placed on the NEO CP. P. Birtwhistle (Great Shefford, U.K.) was
able to detect a small coma which was confirmed later by T. B. Spahr (Mt. Hopkins).
The 18.5m comet P/2002 T6 (NEAT-LINEAR) will pass perihelion
according to the first and preliminary orbit in June 2003, at about 3.4 AU. The
period is about 21 years. LINEAR has now found 96 comets, NEAT 27.
(IAUC 8002,
MPEC 2002-U42)
10/27/2002
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New Discovery!:
On Oct 25, 2002, the LINEAR project
discovered a new comet. The 15m comet C/2002 U2 (LINEAR)
will pass perihelion according to the first and preliminary orbit in January 2003,
at about 1.15 AU. It may become as bright as 13 - 14m. LINEAR has
now found 95 comets.
(IAUC 8000,
MPEC 2002-U33)
10/23/2002
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New Discovery!:
An apparently asteroidal object, discovered on Oct 05, 2002, by the
LINEAR project was posted on the NEO
Confirmation Page due to its unusual motion. D. T. Durig and J. A. K. Blackwood
(University of the South, Sewanee, TN) and G. Hug (Eskridge, KS) were then able
detect a small coma and a short tail. The 17m comet P/2002 T5 (LINEAR)
will pass perihelion according to the first and preliminary orbit in July 2003, at
about 3.9 AU. The period is about 18.5 years. The comet will become only slightly
brighter in the coming months. LINEAR has now found 94 comets.
(IAUC 7998,
MPEC 2002-U20)
10/21/2002
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C/2002 U1 (SOHO) is a Kreutz group comet found by X. Leprette. SOHO has now
found 529 comets.
(MPEC 2002-U08)
10/19/2002
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Further images
of comet C/2002 O4 (Hönig) illustrating the mentioned shape of the comet
were taken by Yuuji Ohshima (Kiso-Fukushima, Nagano, Japan) on Oct. 11, and 16.
(e-mail, Comets Mailing List)
10/18/2002
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Comet C/2002 O4 (Hönig) has faded rapidly and may have disintegrated.
K. Kadota (Ageo, Saitama, Japan)
imaged this comet
on Oct. 10.82 UT, as a diffuse glow of about 13.3m showing the typical
shape of a disintegrating comet. On an image taken two nights later by Y. Ezaki
(Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan) the comet was not found down to 15m.
(IAUC 7995, e-mail)
10/13/2002
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Recovery!:
On Oct 11, 2002, NEAT discovered a new comet.
The object was confirmed by several observers and with the help of pre-discovery
observations by LINEAR of Oct. 4, and 9, the comet was announced as the new periodic
comet P/2002 T4 (NEAT). Only hours later it was reported that K. Muraoka was
able to identify
this new comet with the long-lost periodic comet 54P/de Vico-Swift
seen only three times (1844, 1894 and 1965). The correction to the prediction was
about -7.5 days. The comet passed 0.16 AU from Jupiter in 1968. 54P is now about
19m and passed perihelion already in July 2002, at about 2.1 AU. The
period is about 7.3 years. The comet seems to have been renamed as
54P/de Vico-Swift-NEAT.
(IAUC 7991,
IAUC 7992,
MPEC 2002-T76, e-mail)
10/12/2002
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Another six SOHO comets received orbits and designations. C/2002 S8 (SOHO)
(found by D. Evans), C/2002 S9 (SOHO) (S. Hönig), C/2002 S10 (SOHO)
(M. Boschat) and C/2002 T3 (SOHO) (M. Oates) are members of the Kreutz group.
C/2002 S11 (SOHO) (T. Scarmato) is the 14th member of the
Kracht group, which now contains
as many members as the Marsden group. C/2002 T2 (SOHO) (X. Leprette) is the
33rd member of the
Meyer group. SOHO has now found
528 comets.
(MPEC 2002-T75)
10/06/2002
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Another two SOHO comets received orbits and designations. C/2002 S6 (SOHO)
was found by M. Oates and is a member of the Kreutz group. C/2002 S7 (SOHO)
was detected by R. Matson and is the 13th member of the
Kracht group. SOHO has now
found 522 comets.
(MPEC 2002-T25)
10/05/2002
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New Discovery!:
On Oct 03, 2002, the LINEAR project
discovered a new comet. After posting the object on the NEO Confirmation Page
several observers were able to confirm the cometary nature. The 15m
comet P/2002 T1 (LINEAR) will pass perihelion according to the first and
preliminary orbit on Oct. 8, 2002, at about 1.2 AU. The period is about 6.4 years.
Since the comet is now closest to Earth with about 0.2 AU it is an intrinsically
faint object. The comet won't become brighter in the next weeks. LINEAR has now
found 93 comets.
(IAUC 7983,
MPEC 2002-T15)
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Two SOHO comets received orbits and designations. C/2002 S4 (SOHO) and
C/2002 S5 (SOHO) are both members of the
Kracht group which now has
12 members. The comets were found by R. Matson and R. Kracht, respectively. SOHO
has now found 520 comets.
(MPEC 2002-T16)