Electronic Telegram No. 3840
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 F1 (HILL)
     R. E. Hill reports his discovery of a comet on CCD images taken with
the Catalina Sky Survey's 0.68-m Schmidt telescope (discovery observations
tabulated below).  Four co-added 30-s exposures in 2"-3" seeing show a nuclear
condensation 2"-3" across with a fan-shaped tail about 15" long in p.a. 200
deg.  Hill's co-added 60-s follow-up observations on Mar. 31.4 UT show a coma
with a bright, condensed nuclear condensation around 5"-7" across and a
fan-shaped tail 15"-20" long in p.a. about 200 deg.

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.   Observer
     Mar. 29.47319   16 29 11.05   +28 02 48.5          Hill
          29.47769   16 29 10.78   +28 02 55.7            "
          29.48670   16 29 10.45   +28 03 09.4            "
          29.51025   16 29 09.50   +28 03 43.8            "
          29.51110   16 29 09.40   +28 03 45.7   18.6     "
          29.51194   16 29 09.31   +28 03 46.3            "
          29.51279   16 29 09.26   +28 03 48.1            "
          29.51364   16 29 09.17   +28 03 49.4            "

After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP and PCCP
webpages, other CCD astrometrists have also commented on the object's
cometary appearance.  Images obtained by M. Tichy, J. Ticha, M. Kocer, and M.
Honkova with the 1.06-m KLENOT Telescope at Klet Observatory on Mar. 29.92
show the comet to be diffuse with a coma diameter of about 10".  Ten stacked
60-s unfiltered exposures obtained remotely on Mar. 30.4 by E. Guido, N.
Howes, and M. Nicolini with an iTelescope 0.50-m f/6.8 astrograph located
near Mayhill, NM, U.S.A., reveal a coma about 5" in diameter elongated toward
p.a. 215 deg.  H. Sato, Tokyo, Japan, writes that his ten stacked 60-s images
obtained on Mar. 30.3 with a 0.51-m f/6.8 astrograph near Mayhill show a
strongly condensed coma 10" in diameter with a faint 15" tail toward p.a. 240
degrees; he measured a luminance-filtered magnitude of 18.4 within a circular
aperture of radius 6".5.  E. Bryssinck, Kruibeke, Belgium, co-added five
120-s unfiltered images obtained remotely with an iTelescope 0.51-m f/4.5
reflector at Siding Springs on Mar. 31.7, revealing a circular coma with a
size of about 19".
     The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic orbital
elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-G02.

     T = 2013 Oct. 27.1819 TT         Peri. =  13.9348
                                      Node  = 240.6782  2000.0
     q = 3.616492 AU                  Incl. = 108.9067


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

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 April 1                     (CBET 3840)              Daniel W. E. Green