News - November 2005

2005 November 27

New Discovery!: R. Kowalski reports his discovery of a new comet on Nov. 25, 2005, in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey. The 18^m comet was confirmed by E. J. Christensen (Mt. Lemmon), J. G. Ries (McDonald Observatory), and P. Birtwhistle (Great Shefford). With prediscovery observations by NEAT of Nov. 21, 2005, the first orbit for comet C/2005 W3 (Kowalski) shows perihelion already on April 22, 2005, at about 2.7 AU. This is the 25^th comet discovery by Catalina. (IAUC 8634, subscription required, MPEC 2005-W72)
With prediscovery observations by LINEAR of Nov. 03, 2005, the orbit for comet C/2005 W2 (Christensen) was improved. The comet is of intermediate period with P of about 83 years. Perihelion occurs on March 27, 2006, at about 3.3 AU. (MPEC 2005-W73)

2005 November 21

New Discovery!: E. J. Christensen reports his discovery of a new comet on Nov. 20, 2005, in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey. After posting on the NEO Confirmation Page the cometary nature of the 17^m object was confirmed by several observers including P. Birtwhistle (Great Shefford), J. McGaha (Tucson) and J. Young (Table Mountain). The first orbit for comet C/2005 W2 (Christensen) shows perihelion already on June 1, 2005, at about 3.2 AU. This is the 24^th comet discovery by Catalina. (CBET 297, subscription required, MPEC 2005-W24)

2005 November 18

H. Su discovered a rather bright Marsden comet in SOHO/LASCO images of Nov. 16, and following. C/2005 W1 (SOHO) is the 22^nd member of the Marsden group and might be identical with C/2000 C3 (SOHO) as shown in a linkage by B. G. Marsden. This is SOHOs 1025^th official comet discovery. (MPEC 2005-W07)

2005 November 05

New Discovery!: D. Tholen (University of Hawaii) reports the discovery of a new comet on Nov. 01, 2005, by Fabrizio Bernardi with the 3.6-m Canada-France-Hawaii telescope in the course of the University Of Hawaii Asteroid Survey (UHAS). The preliminary orbit for the 20^m comet P/2005 V1 (Bernardi) shows perihelion already on Sep. 05, 2005, at about 2.4 AU. The period is about 16.4 years. (IAUC 8627, subscription required, MPEC 2005-V41)

2005 November 03

Additional astrometry shows that comet 2005 T4 is of intermediate period with P of about 27 years. Comet P/2005 T4 (SWAN) is the first SOHO discovery that has been firmly established as periodic with the help of ground-based observations. (MPEC 2005-V22)