Electronic Telegram No. 3818
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/2014 D2 (CATALINA-PANSTARRS)
     Richard Wainscoat, Peter Veres, Robert Jedicke, Bryce Bolin, Marco
Micheli, and Larry Denneau report the discovery of a comet on two g-band CCD
images taken with the 1.8-m Pan-STARRS1 telescope at Haleakala on Feb. 27, the
object noted as having an extended point-spread function with short tail
extending 3" in position angle approximately 300 degrees.  Follow-up images
were obtained on Mar. 7 by Wainscoat and Veres (queue observer David
Woodworth) using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea; one 120-s
r-band image shows a sharp, almost-starlike nuclear condensation with the
central condensation being extended relative to a star beyond the sharp
central nuclear condensation, and it shows a distinct tail extending for 30"
in position angle 305 degrees.  Using preliminary astrometry from the CFHT
image, Veres found pre-discovery Pan-STARRS1 images as far back as Jan.
2013 (including 2013 Jan. 21.5 UT, when no cometary activity was noted and
the i-band magnitude was 20.9; 2013 Dec. 4.6, when a coma and a tail were
seen, and the w-band magnitude was 20.7-20.9; 2014 Jan. 17.6 and Feb. 13,
when low-signal-to-noise images show coma only; and 2014 Feb. 21.5, when
a tail and coma were visible, with i-band magnitude 19.3).  Using the Jan.
27 Pan-STARRS1 and Mar. 7 CFHT astrometry, G. V. Williams identified
observations made by R. E. Hill (the object appearing apparently asteroidal)
in Catalina Sky Survey astrometry also obtained on Feb. 27.  The discovery
observations are tabulated below:

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.   Observer
     Feb. 27.31303   11 13 43.73   -10 11 48.4   18.4   Catalina
          27.31804   11 13 43.55   -10 11 48.7   18.5     "
          27.32304   11 13 43.31   -10 11 48.1   18.7     "
          27.32802   11 13 43.20   -10 11 47.1   18.2     "
          27.43337   11 13 39.37   -10 11 35.7   19.8   Pan-STARRS
          27.44565   11 13 38.91   -10 11 34.2   20.0     "

After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP and PCCP
webpages, H. Sato (Tokyo, Japan) reported that his twelve stacked 60-s CCD
images taken with a 0.32-m f/8 astrograph at the RAS Observatory near Nerpio,
Spain, on Mar. 9.0 show the object to be strongly condensed with a round coma
of diameter 6" and luminance-filtered magnitude 18.3 as measured within a
circular aperture of radius 4".4.

The available astrometry, the following elliptical orbital elements by
Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-E50.

                    Epoch = 2015 Feb. 27.0 TT
     T = 2015 Feb. 23.30798 TT        Peri. = 323.51649
     e = 0.2821833                    Node  = 271.68071 2000.0
     q = 3.1394654 AU                 Incl. =  10.47981
       a =  4.3736312 AU   n = 0.10775584   P =   9.15 years


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

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 March 9                     (CBET 3818)              Daniel W. E. Green