Circular No. 7076

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION

Mailstop 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

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COMET P/1998 X2 (BOWELL-SKIFF) G. V. Williams, Minor Planet Center, has rediscovered comet P/1983

C1 (= 1983c = 1983 II) in the course of his processing of two-night “asteroid” data obtained by the LINEAR program on Dec. 14 and 17:

1998 UT  α_{2000}  δ_{2000}  m_{2}
Dec. 14.44735  7^{h}12^{m}59.^{s}06  +28^{o}04′19′′.7  18.8
14.46919  7 12 58.59  +28 04 19.9  18.8
14.49110  7 12 57.91  +28 04 20.2  19.5
14.51294  7 12 57.22  +28 04 24.6  19.5
17.41385  7 11 36.68  +28 08 41.5  18.5
17.43657  7 11 35.95  +28 08 43.1  18.5
17.45923  7 11 35.30  +28 08 44.5  19.0
17.50490  7 11 33.59  +28 08 48.6  19.3

The indicated correction to the prediction on MPC 27081 (ephemeris on MPC 32547) is ΔT = +17.3 days. Williams has computed the following improved orbital elements satisfying 32 observations 1983–1998 with mean residual 1′′.1:

Epoch = 1999 May 22.0 TT

T = 1999 May 14.9027 TT  ω = 173.^{o}1151
e = 0.691740  Ω = 343.4517 }2000.0
q = 1.972033 AU  i = 3.8367

a = 6.397311 AU n^{o} = 0.0609127 P = 16.181 years

1998 /99 α_{2000}  δ_{2000}  Δ  r  ϵ  β  m_{2}
Dec. 23 7^{h}08.^{m}46 +28^{o}16.^{′}4 1.464 2.427 164.^{o}8 6.^{o}1 19.2
Jan. 2 7 01.37 +28 26.5 1.393 2.373 173.8  2.6 18.9
12 6 53.37 +28 29.0 1.349 2.322 168.9  4.7 18.9
22 6 45.84 +28 21.9 1.330 2.272 158.0  9.3 19.0
Feb. 1 6 40.23 +28 05.1 1.334 2.226 146.9 14.0 19.2
11 6 37.59 +27 40.5 1.359 2.182 136.3 18.2 19.3
21 6 38.55 +27 10.1 1.400 2.142 126.6 21.8 19.4
Mar. 3 6 43.27 +26 35.2 1.453 2.105 117.7 24.6 19.6
13 6 51.56 +25 56.0 1.516 2.072 109.6 26.9 19.7
23 7 03.05 +25 11.7 1.585 2.044 102.3 28.5 19.8
Apr. 2 7 17.31 +24 20.9 1.658 2.020  95.7 29.5 19.9
12 7 33.81 +23 21.9 1.735 2.000  89.8 30.1 20.0
22 7 52.14 +22 13.3 1.815 1.986  84.3 30.2 20.1
May 2 8 11.84 +20 54.1 1.896 1.976  79.4 30.1 20.2
1998 December 28  \begin{matrix}c \\ ◯ \end{matrix} Copyright 1998 CBAT  Brian G. Marsden