Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams -- Image credits

IAUC 7869: P/2002 AR2; C/2002 F1

The following International Astronomical Union Circular may be linked-to from your own Web pages, but must not otherwise be redistributed (see these notes on the conditions under which circulars are made available on our WWW site).

Read IAUC 7868 SEARCH Read IAUC 7870

View IAUC 7869 in .dvi or .ps format.
IAUC number 

                                                  Circular No. 7869
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)
CBAT@CFA.HARVARD.EDU (science)
URL http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/cbat.html  ISSN 0081-0304
Phone 617-495-7440/7244/7444 (for emergency use only)


COMET P/2002 AR2 (LINEAR)
     An apparently asteroidal object reported by LINEAR in early January
(discovery position below) and considered of only moderate interest was also
recognized at the Minor Planet Center to have been accidentally reobserved by
LINEAR on three isolated nights in February and March, after which the
orbit calculation suggested the object might be a comet.  It was therefore
listed on the NEO Confirmation Page.  Observations with the 1.2-m reflector
at Mt. Hopkins Observatory by P. Berlind and T. B. Spahr on Apr. 6.1 UT
in poor conditions (high thin cirrus) showed that the images were softer than
those of stars of similar brightness, and observations on Apr. 7.2 showed the
slightly diffuse images of a definite comet.

     2002 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.        m2
     Jan.  6.14531    2 32 53.60   +46 57 58.1   18.9

     Complete astrometry is tabulated on MPEC 2002-G30, together with the
following orbital elements and an ephemeris:

                    Epoch = 2002 Jan.  6.0 TT
     T = 2002 Jan. 16.5339 TT         Peri. =  73.6733
     e = 0.615703                     Node  =   7.8464  2000.0
     q = 2.064463 AU                  Incl. =  21.1092
       a =  5.372055 AU    n = 0.0791577    P =  12.451 years


COMET C/2002 F1 (UTSUNOMIYA)
     Ephemeris continuation to IAUC 7855 (MPEC 2002-G11 elements):

2002 TT     R. A. (2000) Decl.     Delta      r    Elong. Phase      m1
Apr.  6    23 23.36    +23 26.3    1.255    0.610   28.7   51.8      6.8
      8    23 40.05    +25 33.2    1.231    0.578   27.7   53.5      6.6
     10    23 58.35    +27 32.8    1.210    0.548   26.6   55.0      6.3
     12     0 18.28    +29 20.5    1.195    0.520   25.5   56.1      6.0
     14     0 39.77    +30 51.4    1.184    0.495   24.4   56.8      5.8
     16     1 02.57    +32 00.3    1.179    0.473   23.3   57.1      5.6
     18     1 26.27    +32 42.7    1.178    0.456   22.4   56.8      5.4
     20     1 50.33    +32 55.8    1.183    0.445   21.6   56.1      5.3
     22     2 14.08    +32 38.7    1.192    0.439   20.9   54.8      5.3
     24     2 36.92    +31 53.2    1.205    0.439   20.5   53.2      5.3
     26     2 58.34    +30 42.9    1.223    0.446   20.2   51.3      5.4

                      (C) Copyright 2002 CBAT
2002 April 7                   (7869)              Brian G. Marsden

Read IAUC 7868 SEARCH Read IAUC 7870

View IAUC 7869 in .dvi or .ps format.

Our Web policy. Index to the CBAT/MPC/ICQ pages.

Valid HTML 4.01!