Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams -- Image credits

IAUC 8944: C/2008 J5; P/2008 J2

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 8943  SEARCH Read IAUC 8945

View IAUC 8944 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.
IAUC number


                                                  Circular No. 8944
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://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/cbat.html  ISSN 0081-0304
Phone 617-495-7440/7244/7444 (for emergency use only)


COMET C/2008 J5 (GARRADD)
     G. J. Garradd reports his discovery of a comet with a 40" coma
and a broad 20" tail toward the southwest on CCD survey images
obtained with the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt telescope (discovery
observation tabulated below).  Following posting on the Minor
Planet Center's 'NEOCP' webpage, C. Jacques and E. Pimentel (Belo
Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 0.30-m f/3 reflector) write that
their CCD images from May 4.3 UT show a condensed coma 30" in
diameter.  J. C. Pelle found a diffuse coma of diameter 20" with a
bright central condensation and a faint tail 20" long in p.a. 220
deg on images taken on May 14.54-14.57 by N. Teamo with a 0.41-m
f/8 reflector at Punaauia, French Polynesia.  R. Ligustri
(Talmassons, Udine, Italy) found a 24" coma on stacked CCD
exposures obtained remotely with a 0.25-m f/6 reflector at Moorook,
South Australia, on May 14.74-14.76.

     2008 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     May  13.73380   22 28 50.70   -42 14 48.1   16.7

The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic
orbital elements, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2008-J76.


COMET P/2008 J2 (BESHORE)
     Additional observations have shown this comet (cf. IAUC 8941)
to be of short period; the following orbital elements are from MPEC
2008-J68:

     T = 2008 Apr. 24.018 TT          Peri. = 143.165
     e = 0.27988                      Node  =  97.432   2000.0
     q = 2.45485 AU                   Incl. =  10.622
       a =  3.40895 AU     n = 0.156593     P =   6.29 years

     Visual total-magnitude and coma-diameter estimates:  May 7.43
UT, 14.1, 0'.3 (A. Hale, Cloudcroft, NM, 0.41-m reflector); 9.97,
13.0, about 1' (M. L. Paradowski, Dabrowa, Poland, 0.20-m reflector);
12.07, 12.7, 1'.2 (J. J. Gonzalez, Leon, Spain, 0.20-m reflector).

                      (C) Copyright 2008 CBAT
2008 May 15                    (8944)            Daniel W. E. Green

Read IAUC 8943  SEARCH Read IAUC 8945

View IAUC 8944 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.


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


Valid HTML 4.01!