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 13m. 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 89th 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 88th 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 16m 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 2m and could reach 14m. (IAUC 7262)
09/21/1999
- New Discovery!:
R. H. McNaught (Australian National University) discovered a 17.5m 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 87th 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 4m - 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 20m 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)