Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams -- Image credits

IAUC 8718: COMET C/2006 HW_51 (SIDING SPRING); C/2006 H3-H6

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 8717 SEARCH Read IAUC 8719

View IAUC 8718 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.
IAUC number 

                                                  Circular No. 8718
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/2006 HW_51 (SIDING SPRING)
     An apparently asteroidal object discovered by R. H. McNaught
in the course of the Siding Spring project (discovery observation
tabulated below) has been found to be cometary by A. Fitzsimmons,
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen's University, Belfast
(together with S. C. Lowry and C. Snodgrass) on images taken with
the 2.0-m Faulkes Telescope North on June 4.3 UT in poor seeing
(2".0 FWHM), the 300-s R-band exposure showing a significantly
flatter profile than exhibited by field stars, with a roughly
symmetric coma extending 3"; a slightly longer exposure on June 5.3
in 1".6 seeing shows a coma extending 3" from the central
condensation (magnitudes within a 3"-radius aperture were V = 17.77,
V-R = +0.46).

     2006 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     Apr. 23.48710    9 38 29.94   -37 16 47.3   17.5

Recent astrometry, the following parabolic orbital elements, and an
ephemeris appear on MPEC 2006-L27.

     T = 2006 Sept.29.4083 TT         Peri. = 359.9812
                                      Node  = 228.1499  2000.0
     q = 2.265030 AU                  Incl. =  45.7966


COMETS C/2006 H3-H6 (SOHO)
     Additional Kreutz sungrazing comets have been found on SOHO
website images (cf. IAUC 8717; AA = A. Ambrus).  C/2006 H3 was
described by K. Battams as very faint, slightly diffuse, and
elongated.  C/2006 H4 appeared stellar in C3 images, reaching mag
6.1 on Apr. 21.988 at 10.6 solar radii; in C2 images, it showed a
faint, thin tail that reached a length of 383" on Apr. 22.313.
C/2006 H5 was very small, slightly diffuse, and also too faint for
photometry.  C/2006 H6, which was also found by H. Su, was small
and stellar in C3 images, but elongated in C2 images, where it
reached mag 6.4 on Apr. 28.603 at 6.6 solar radii.

 Comet        2006 UT       R.A.(2000)Decl.   Inst.  F    MPEC
 C/2006 H3    Apr. 19.354   1 56.3   +10 16   C2     KB   2006-K29
 C/2006 H4         21.404   2 15.3   + 9 44   C3/2   AA   2006-K29
 C/2006 H5         24.314   2 13.8   +11 51   C2     HS   2006-K29
 C/2006 H6         28.321   2 32.9   +12 34   C3/2   JS   2006-L20

                      (C) Copyright 2006 CBAT
2006 June 5                    (8718)            Daniel W. E. Green

Read IAUC 8717 SEARCH Read IAUC 8719

View IAUC 8718 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.

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

Valid HTML 4.01!