Electronic Telegram No. 3097 Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION CBAT Director: Daniel W. E. Green; Hoffman Lab 209; Harvard University; 20 Oxford St.; Cambridge, MA 02138; U.S.A. e-mail: cbatiau@eps.harvard.edu (alternate cbat@iau.org) URL http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/index.html Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network COMET P/2012 H1 (PANSTARRS) Larry Denneau, Richard Wainscoat, and Henry Hsieh report the discovery of a comet in four exposures taken with the 1.8-m Pan-STARRS 1 telescope at Haleakala (discovery observations tabulated below), with the object having a soft appearance and a point-spread function slightly larger than those of nearby stars. 2012 UT R.A. (2000) Decl. Mag. Apr. 27.42935 14 21 18.44 - 4 25 44.4 21.6 27.44432 14 21 17.86 - 4 25 41.9 21.6 27.45931 14 21 17.31 - 4 25 39.2 21.6 27.47428 14 21 16.74 - 4 25 36.5 21.7 Additional astrometry (including Mount Lemmon Survey observations obtained on 2011 Feb. 7 and 2012 Mar. 28, and Spacewatch-telescope observations on 2012 Mar. 29), the following orbital elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2012-H94. Epoch = 2011 Mar. 20.0 TT T = 2011 Mar. 19.2741 TT Peri. = 25.8586 e = 0.209054 Node = 126.3419 2000.0 q = 3.479927 AU Incl. = 6.7450 a = 4.399700 AU n = 0.1067996 P = 9.23 years NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are sometimes superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars. (C) Copyright 2012 CBAT 2012 April 30 (CBET 3097) Daniel W. E. Green