Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
IAUC 6923: C/1998 K5
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Circular No. 6923
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
Mailstop 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
IAUSUBS@CFA.HARVARD.EDU or FAX 617-495-7231 (subscriptions)
BMARSDEN@CFA.HARVARD.EDU or DGREEN@CFA.HARVARD.EDU (science)
URL http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/cbat.html
Phone 617-495-7244/7440/7444 (for emergency use only)
COMET C/1998 K5 (LINEAR)
It appears that yet another comet has been recognized among the
fast-moving objects reported by the Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth
Asteroid Research project and included on The NEO Confirmation Page:
1998 UT R.A. (2000) Decl. m2
May 26.37939 17 26 02.33 + 2 02 11.1 18.0
The high orbital eccentricity indicated in the early computations was the
first clue that the object might be a comet, although there were the
complications that the orbit has a low inclination and that, when asked,
several observers felt that their data showed the object to be asteroidal
in nature. The first observational indication of cometary character was
provided by P. J. Shelus, who remarked that images obtained by J. G. Ries
(McDonald, 0.76-m reflector, poor seeing) on May 29.39 UT seemed to show
a tail to the south and west, roughly opposite the object's direction of
motion. P. Pravec (Ondrejov, 0.65-m reflector) also remarked on the tail,
consistently on coadded images and marginally on individual images, 0'.4
long in p.a. 235 deg on May 27.03, 0'.4 long in p.a. 225 deg on May 28.95
and 0'.3 long in p.a. 227 deg on May 29.97. On May 30.46 C. Veillet
(Canada-France-Hawaii, 3.6-m reflector) noted a clear 30" tail on a 1-min
exposure (http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/~veillet/A65.html). S. Nakano reports
that A. Sugie (Dynic, 0.6-m reflector, bad seeing), observing on May 27.58,
independently noted (on four coadded frames) a 16" tail in p.a. 230 deg.
The following parabolic orbital elements, computed by the undersigned
from 128 observations May 26-30, are taken from MPEC 1998-K33:
T = 1998 July 17.326 TT Peri. = 99.215
Node = 211.333 2000.0
q = 0.96411 AU Incl. = 10.044
1998 TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase m1
May 31 17 41.26 + 7 32.6 0.283 1.258 145.9 26.9 15.3
June 2 17 49.25 +10 21.5 0.266 1.237 143.2 29.4 15.0
4 17 58.33 +13 27.8 0.250 1.217 140.1 32.3 14.8
6 18 08.72 +16 52.4 0.236 1.197 136.6 35.6 14.6
8 18 20.68 +20 35.1 0.223 1.178 132.7 39.3 14.5
10 18 34.53 +24 34.4 0.212 1.159 128.4 43.4 14.3
12 18 50.64 +28 47.2 0.203 1.141 123.7 47.8 14.1
14 19 09.40 +33 07.6 0.196 1.123 118.7 52.5 14.0
16 19 31.22 +37 27.4 0.191 1.106 113.5 57.4 13.8
(C) Copyright 1998 CBAT
1998 May 30 (6923) Brian G. Marsden
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