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IAUC 7962: C/2002 Q5; 2000 CF_105

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                                                  Circular No. 7962
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 C/2002 Q5 (LINEAR)
     L. Manguso, Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, reports the discovery of a comet (discovery observation
given below) on LINEAR images.  Following posting on the NEO
Confirmation Page, the object's cometary nature was confirmed by
several CCD observers.  J. Nomen (0.40-m Schmidt telescope, Ametlla
de Mar, Spain) reported a 20" coma (m_1 = 16.7) and a 1' tail in
p.a. 140 deg on Aug. 29.0 UT.  Near the same time, P. Kusnirak
(0.65-m f/3.6 reflector, Ondrejov) found the comet to be slightly
diffuse with a coma diameter of 10" and a faint tail toward the
southeast on R-band images.  On Aug. 29.3, P. R. Holvorcem and M.
Schwartz (0.36-m reflector, Cottage Grove, OR) found a coma
diameter of about 20" and m_1 = 15.6 on 90-s exposures.

     2002 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.        m1
     Aug. 28.21840   20 06 07.55   +38 24 57.5   17.3

The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic
orbital elements (from 25 observations, Aug. 28-29), and an
ephemeris appear on MPEC 2002-Q43.

     T = 2002 Nov. 19.957 TT          Peri. = 135.275
                                      Node  =  34.322   2000.0
     q = 1.22115 AU                   Incl. = 149.318


2000 CF_105
     W. Romanishin, University of Oklahoma; S. Tegler, Northern
Arizona University; K. Noll and D. Stephens, Space Telescope
Science Institute; W. Grundy, J. Spencer, R. Millis, and M. Buie,
Lowell Observatory; and D. Cruikshank, Ames Research Center,
confirm the binary nature of the transneptunian object 2000 CF_105.
The image of the object appears elongated in the coaddition of four
10-min R-band exposures taken (under 0".7 seeing conditions) with
the Keck I 10-m telescope (+ LRIS) on Apr. 11.3 UT.  Preliminary
image modeling shows a separation of 0".8 +/- 0".2 at p.a. 103 +/-
5 deg, with a difference of 0.6 +/- 0.2 magnitude between the
components.  These numbers are consistent with (but have larger
uncertainties than) the numbers reported for the Hubble Space
Telescope observations on Jan. 12.1 (cf. IAUC 7857).

                      (C) Copyright 2002 CBAT
2002 August 29                 (7962)            Daniel W. E. Green

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