Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams -- Image credits

IAUC 8494: COMET C/2005 E2 (McNAUGHT); C/2005 E3

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 8493 SEARCH Read IAUC 8495

View IAUC 8494 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.
IAUC number 

                                                  Circular No. 8494
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/2005 E2 (McNAUGHT)
     R. H. McNaught reports his discovery of a comet with a 12"
tail in p.a. 250 deg on CCD images taken on Mar. 12.8 and 13.8 UT
with the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring
(discovery observation given below).  Following posting on the 'NEO
Confirmation Page', CCD observations obtained with the 1.0-m f/7.7
reflector at Mt. John University Observatory on Mar. 13.7 by A. C.
Gilmore (measured by P. M. Kilmartin) show a uniform coma about 7"
in diameter with a stubby tail 13" long to the southwest.

     2005 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     Mar. 12.75009   19 47 24.43   -35 48 32.6   16.5

The available astrometry, the following very preliminary parabolic
orbital elements, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2005-E84.

     T = 2006 Apr. 13.126 TT          Peri. = 358.748
                                      Node  = 357.427   2000.0
     q = 3.01128 AU                   Incl. =  16.116


COMETS C/2005 E3 (SOHO) AND C/2005 E4 (SOHO)
     Additional comets found on SOHO website images (cf. IAUC 8490;
MO = M. Oates).

 Comet       2005 UT       R.A.(2000)Decl.  Inst.  F    MPEC
 C/2005 E3   Mar.  6.671   23 16.9  - 6 09   C2    MO   2005-E87
 C/2005 E4        10.388   23 33.0  - 2 48   C3    RK   2005-E87

C/2005 E3 is a Kreutz sungrazer, while C/2005 E4 belongs to the
Marsden group.  On MPEC 2005-E87, B. G. Marsden suggests that
C/2005 E4 is identical with C/1999 N5 and has P = 5.66 yr.  He
shows that, when run back a further revolution, the linked orbit
agrees very closely with the linked orbit corresponding to his
earlier suggestion that C/2004 V9 was a return of C/1999 J6 (IAUC
8456, MPEC 2004-X73, P = 5.49 yr), with then T = 1993 Nov. 20-22, q
= 0.0515 AU, and agreement to better than 0.3 deg in Peri., Node,
and i.  This indicates that these Marsden-group comets probably
separated from each other around that time.  Marsden adds that, if
C/1999 U2 also then separated from them, it would now have P = 5.95
yr and T = 2005 Oct. 8 (to within a few days).

                      (C) Copyright 2005 CBAT
2005 March 16                  (8494)            Daniel W. E. Green

Read IAUC 8493 SEARCH Read IAUC 8495

View IAUC 8494 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.

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

Valid HTML 4.01!