News - January 2003

01/30/2003

The backlog of SOHO comets is started to be worked on. Three SOHO comets received orbits and designations: C/2000 G3 (SOHO) is an archival Kreutz comet found by R. Kracht. C/2002 V3 (SOHO) is a Kreutz comet found by D. Evans. C/2002 V4 (SOHO) is the 35^th member of the Meyer group, again found by R. Kracht. (MPEC 2003-B42)

01/25/2003

Starting from today, comet C/2002 X5 (Kudo-Fujikawa) will be visible in the field of view of the SOHO/LASCO C3 coronagraph. The LASCO team has set up a special campaign to monitor this comet. On Jan. 31, C/2002 X5 will leave the C3 field. For a short time in between it will also be visible in the C2 coronagraph field of view.

01/18/2003

Comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT) is still going on strong. Despite the bright moon it displays a large and condensed coma, even a short ion tail is visible. P. Manteca was able to image a small disconnection event in the tail of the comet. It will be interesting to see if the comet can keep up the steep brightness evolution. Additionally, M. L. Sitko, (Univ. of Cincinnati) and D. K. Lynch, R. W. Russell, and D. Kim (The Aerospace Corporation) report results of 3-14-micron spectroscopy of C/2002 V1 (NEAT) done with the Aerospace Broadband Array Spectrograph System at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility 3-m reflector in IAUC 8050. M. Honda (University of Tokyo), and colleagues (T. Yamashita, H. Kataza, T. Miyata, T. Fujiyoshi, S. Sako, Y. K. Okamoto, T. Onaka, T. Sekiguchi, D. Kinoshita, and J. Watanabe) report on mid-infrared observations in IAUC 8053. (Comets Mailing List, IAUC 8050, IAUC 8053)
C/2002 X5 (Kudo-Fujikawa) developed not as expected showing a slow brightness evolution. The expected peak brightness - visible with the SOHO/LASCO coronagraphs may not be brighter than 4^m.
M. Honda (University of Tokyo), and colleagues (T. Yamashita, H. Kataza, T. Miyata, T. Fujiyoshi, S. Sako, Y. K. Okamoto, T. Onaka, T. Sekiguchi, D. Kinoshita, and J. Watanabe) report on mid-infrared observations of comet C/2001 RX₁₄ (LINEAR) in IAUC 8053. (IAUC 8053)

01/15/2003

The latest MPC orbit for comet P/2003 A1 confirms the short-period nature. A name will most likely be given to this comet when the observed orbital arc is long enough to make firm statements about the possible identity with D/1783 W1 (Pigott). (MPEC 2003-A86)

01/14/2003

New Discovery!: On Jan. 10, 2003, Arianna E. Gleason discovered a 19^m faint comet with the Spacewatch II telescope at Kitt Peak in the course of the Spacewatch survey. After posting on the NEO CP the object was confirmed by several observers. The first and very tentative assumed parabolic orbital elements for comet C/2003 A2 show this object to be very distant, with a perihelion distance of about 11.5 AU which was reached at the time of discovery. However it is noted that it is most likely a Centaur, which shows cometary activity near perihelion, just like 95P/Chiron. (CBET 8, MPEC 2003-A78)
Independent backward integrations of the orbit of comet C/2003 A1 seem to support the possibility that this comet is identical with the lost comet D/1783 W1 (Pigott). (Comets Mailing List)

01/09/2003

New Discovery!: The 100^th comet discovery by LINEAR may turn out to be a very interesting one. The comet wwas discovered on Jan. 05, 2003, as an apparently asteroidal object which was placed on the NEO Confirmation Page. Several follow-up observers were then able to detect a small coma. The 17.5^m comet C/2003 A1 will pass perihelion according to the first and preliminary orbit on Jan. 13, 2003, at about 2.1 AU. Interestingly the angular elements are close to these of the lost comet D/1783 W1 (Pigott) and it is possible that these comets are identical. (IAUC 8044, MPEC 2003-A56)

01/01/2003

According to the discovery story of comet C/2002 Y1 (Juels-Holvorcem) this comet was discovered in the first night of using a wide-field (2.3 x 2.3 degrees) equipment to search for bright objects. The full story can be found here. (Minor Planet Mailing List)
Precovery observations of the object A/2002 VQ₉₄ found by R. Stoss from DANEOPS have changed the orbit quite drastically from the first published orbit in MPEC 2002-V71. The object has now a closer perihelion distance of about 6.8 AU and a high eccentricity of nearly 0.97 leading to a period of about 3200 years. It will reach its closest distance to the Sun not before the beginning of 2006. Until then cometary activity may be detectable. (MPEC 2002-Y67)