News - September 1999

09/26/1999

New Discovery!: M. Bezpalko reports the discovery of a new comet on Sep. 24, 1999, in the course of the LINEAR program. Comet C/1999 S3 (LINEAR) is relatively bright with about 13^m. According to the first orbit it will pass its perihelion on Nov. 06, 1999, at about 1.9 AU and will become a little bit brighter until mid-October, favorably observable high in the evening sky. (IAUC 7265, MPEC 1999-S18)
New Discovery!: Kevin Schenk discovered the 89^th SOHO comet on Sep. 24, 1999, in data of the C3 coronagraph aboard the SOHO spacecraft. The very faint comet has not yet been announced officially by the CBAT. (Sungrazer Homepage)

09/23/1999

New Discovery!: Kevin Schenk discovered the 88^th SOHO comet on Sep. 21, 1999, in data of the C3 coronagraph aboard the SOHO spacecraft. The very faint comet has not yet been announced officially by the CBAT. (Sungrazer Homepage)

09/22/1999

A first orbit has been announced for the new comet C/1999 S2 (McNaught-Watson). According to it the now 16^m comet will pass its perihelion in August 2001 at about 6.8 AU! This first orbit is very preliminary. If it turns out to be true, this comet would have an absolute magnitude of about 2^m and could reach 14^m. (IAUC 7262)

09/21/1999

New Discovery!: R. H. McNaught (Australian National University) discovered a 17.5^m comet on images taken with the U.K. Schmidt Telescope by F. G. Watson on Sep. 19, 1999. No orbit is available for comet 1999 S2 until now. (IAUC 7260)
New Discovery!: Kevin Schenk discovered the 87^th SOHO comet on Sep. 20, 1999, in data of the C3 coronagraph aboard the SOHO spacecraft. The very faint comet has not yet been announced officially by the CBAT. (Sungrazer Homepage)

09/18/1999

New Discovery!: Jonathan Shanklin (Comet Section, British Astronomical Association) discovered SOHO-86 in real time movies taken with the C3 coronagraph aboard the SOHO spacecraft on Sep. 17, 1999. C/1999 S1 (SOHO) is a member of the Kreutz group and showed a brightness of about 4^m - 5 ^m. (IAUC 7256, MPEC 1999-S04)
Recovery!: J. V. Scotti (Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Kitt Peak) reports the recovery of comet P/1988 V1 (= 1988o = 1988 VIII) with 0.9 m Spacewatch telescope on Sep. 15, 1999. Comet P/1999 R2 (Ge-Wang) is about 20^m and showed a small coma and a short tail. The correction to the predicted position is -5.5 days. The comet passed its perihelion already in June 1999. (IAUC 7255)