Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams -- Image credits

IAUC 8953: COMET C/2008 L2 (HILL); C/2008 C6, C/2008 C7, C/2008 C8, C/2008 C9

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 8952 SEARCH Read IAUC 8954

View IAUC 8953 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.
IAUC number 

                                                  Circular No. 8953
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 L2 (HILL)
     R. E. Hill reports his discovery of a comet on CCD images
taken with the 0.68-m Catalina Schmidt telescope (discovery
observation tabulated below), four co-added 30-s exposures on June
12 showing the new object with a 5"-7" coma and a short, diffuse
tail in p.a. 270 deg in 2"-4" seeing; co-added images from June
13.4 UT show a cendensed 12"-14" coma with a 10" diffuse tail in
p.a. 290 deg, and co-added images from June 14.4 show a diffuse,
fan-shaped tail about 20" long in p.a. 250 deg.  Following posting
on the Minor Planet Center's 'NEOCP' webpage, J. M. Aymami (Tiana,
Spain, 0.25-m reflector) writes that co-added CCD images from June
13.1 show a quasi-stellar object with a faint tail 35" long in p.a.
256 deg.

     2008 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     June 12.44006   23 40 43.93   +22 42 02.7   18.3

The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic
orbital elements, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2008-L55.

     T = 2008 July 27.949 TT          Peri. = 130.899
                                      Node  = 222.914   2000.0
     q = 2.50913 AU                   Incl. =  25.341


COMETS C/2008 C6, C/2008 C7, C/2008 C8, C/2008 C9 (SOHO)
     Further to IAUC 8933, additional apparent comets have been
found on SOHO website images; all are Kreutz sungrazers except for
C/2008 C9 (non-group).  C/2008 C6 (mag 7.5) and C/2008 C7 (mag 7)
were both stellar in appearance.  C/2008 C8 reached mag about 5.5
and appeared teardrop-shaped in C3 images, while it was a very
faint, thin streak in C2 images.  C/2008 C9 was marginally diffuse
and very small (mag about 7.5).  An asterisk in the instrumentation
column below indicates that astrometry was also obtained from
STEREO-A/SECCHI HI1 images (see IAUC 8926).

 Comet        2008 UT       R.A.(2000)Decl.   Inst.  F    MPEC
 C/2008 C6    Feb.  7.696   21 36.9  -16 16   C3*    BZ   2008-L18
 C/2008 C7          9.196   21 47.1  -16 17   C3*    HS   2008-L18
 C/2008 C8         14.821   22 17.9  -15 38   C3/2   JS   2008-L18
 C/2008 C9         15.063   21 53.3  -11 33   C2     RK   2008-L18

                      (C) Copyright 2008 CBAT
2008 June 14                   (8953)            Daniel W. E. Green

Read IAUC 8952 SEARCH Read IAUC 8954

View IAUC 8953 in .dvi, .ps or .PDF format.

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

Valid HTML 4.01!