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IAUC 7031: P/1998 S1

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                                                  Circular No. 7031
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 P/1998 S1
     On Oct. 17, Jean Mueller reported her discovery of a cometary object
with a strong condensation and a faint but obvious tail to the southwest
on a 30-min exposure on Oct. 14 with the 1.2-m Oschin Schmidt telescope
at Palomar.  The plate was taken by K. Rykoski and Mueller in the course
of the Palomar Outer Solar System Ecliptic Survey, with M. Brown as the
principal investigator.  The comet was confirmed on Oct. 17 on CCD frames
obtained by R. Gal with the 1.5-m Palomar telescope and on another Oschin
Schmidt 30-min exposure (in seeing so bad that it compromised the
positional measurements) by Mueller.  G. V. Williams, Minor Planet Center,
reduced the Mueller data and found that the comet was probably identical with
an apparently quite ordinary minor planet observed by LINEAR on Sept. 26
and 27.  He placed information about the object in The NEO Confirmation Page.
Initial confirmation of the identity of the LINEAR and Mueller objects was
then provided by new measurements made at the Klet Observatory by J. Ticha
and M. Tichy, who remarked that the object was slightly diffuse, with a
coma of diameter not less than 13" and a faint tail extending for not less
than 30" in p.a. 210 deg.  His resulting orbit improvement allowed Williams
also to identify a single-night (Sept. 17) prediscovery detection in
"asteroidal" data from the Lowell Observatory LONEOS program.  The comet
is of short period and had a close approach to Jupiter in 1992.  The
discovery positions, orbital elements and ephemeris below are extracted
from the more complete data given on MPEC 1998-U07.

     1998 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.   Observer
     Sept.26.21764    1 13 33.81   +12 41 12.7   18.1   LINEAR
     Oct. 14.25694    1 00 13.71   +13 02 14.8   17     Mueller

     T = 1998 Nov.  3.180 TT          Peri. =  26.489
     e = 0.41690                      Node  = 359.183   2000.0
     q = 2.54819 AU                   Incl. =  10.559
       a =  4.37008 AU     n = 0.107887     P =   9.14 years

1998 TT     R. A. (2000) Decl.     Delta      r    Elong. Phase      m1
Oct. 14     1 00.42    +13 02.2    1.558    2.552  173.7    2.4     15.5
     24     0 53.06    +13 04.1    1.575    2.549  165.3    5.7     15.6
Nov.  3     0 47.01    +13 04.3    1.617    2.548  154.5    9.6     15.6
     13     0 43.03    +13 07.4    1.682    2.549  143.9   13.2     15.7
     23     0 41.56    +13 16.9    1.768    2.552  133.7   16.2     15.8

                      (C) Copyright 1998 CBAT
1998 October 19                (7031)              Brian G. Marsden

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