Electronic Telegram No. 3797
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 C/2014 B1 (SCHWARTZ)
     Michael Schwartz reports his discovery of a comet on images taken with
the Tenagra III 0.41-m f/3.75 astrograph at his Tenagra Observatory near
Nogales, AZ, U.S.A., by Schwartz and Paulo Holvorcem (discovery observations
tabulated below); his co-addition of three 300-s unfiltered exposures taken
with the 0.81-m Tenagra II telescope between Jan. 28.23 and 28.27 UT in good
seeing conditions (FWHM 3".0) showed a round coma 10" in diameter.  Further
confirmation of the object's cometary activity was obtained by co-adding
twenty-four 300-s unfiltered exposures taken with the Tenagra II telescope
between Jan. 29.08 and 29.17 under good seeing conditions (FWHM 2".9), which
again showed a central condensation surrounded by a diffuse coma 11" in
diameter, slightly elongated toward position angle 350 degrees.

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.   Observer
     Jan. 28.10488    6 12 49.75   - 4 30 02.2   19.9   Schwartz
          28.12282    6 12 49.51   - 4 29 59.2   19.9     "
          28.14076    6 12 49.27   - 4 29 57.2   19.8     "
          28.22745    6 12 48.49   - 4 29 48.0   19.5     "
          28.24632    6 12 48.22   - 4 29 46.1   19.8     "
          28.26968    6 12 47.95   - 4 29 44.0   19.2     "
          29.08274    6 12 39.84   - 4 28 16.1   19.2     "
          29.09396    6 12 39.71   - 4 28 14.6   19.2     "
          29.10516    6 12 39.59   - 4 28 13.7   19.3     "
          29.11637    6 12 39.47   - 4 28 13.1   19.1     "
          29.12758    6 12 39.36   - 4 28 11.7   19.3     "
          29.13878    6 12 39.21   - 4 28 10.3   19.0     "
          29.14998    6 12 39.13   - 4 28 09.3   19.1     "
          29.16118    6 12 39.02   - 4 28 07.7   19.0     "

After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP and PCCP
webpages, it has been found to show cometary appearance by CCD astrometrists
elsewhere.  H. Sato (Tokyo, Japan; using an iTelescope 0.51-m f/6.8 astrograph
+ broadband luminance filter at Siding Spring) reports that ten stacked 60-s
exposures taken on Jan. 29.6 show a strongly condensed coma of diameter
12"-15" with no obvious tail; the magnitude as measured within a circular
aperture of radius 8".2 was 18.3.  Nine stacked 90-s red-band images obtained
on Feb. 1.0 by Pablo Ruiz with the 1.0-m telescope at the European Space
Agency's Optical Ground Station (Tenerife, Canary Islands) were analyzed by
Marco Micheli, Detlef Koschny, and Andre Knoefel, who report a coma of FWHM
about 3".5 in 2".5 seeing conditions.
     The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic orbital
elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-C03.

     T = 2016 Mar. 13.8516 TT         Peri. = 313.3999
                                      Node  = 176.0228  2000.0
     q = 9.731000 AU                  Incl. =  26.2157


NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are sometimes
      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 February 1                  (CBET 3797)              Daniel W. E. Green