Electronic Telegram No. 3902
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 L3 (HILL)
     R. E. Hill reports his discovery of a comet on Catalina Sky Survey images
obtained with the 0.68-m Schmidt telescope (discovery observations tabulated
below), the comet having a well-condensed nucleus with small coma 4"-5" in
diameter and a broad, diffuse tail 15"-20" long in p.a. about 220-230 deg as
seen in four co-added 30-s images taken with seeing < 2"; four co-added
follow-up images taken on June 10.4 UT show the coma 5"-7" across with a
diffuse, broad tail about 15" long in p.a. about 230 deg.

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.   Observer
     June 10.36436   20 45 53.68   -15 49 48.6   18.0   Hill
          10.36887   20 45 53.96   -15 49 50.0   18.0     "
          10.37338   20 45 54.21   -15 49 50.4   18.2     "
          10.37788   20 45 54.58   -15 49 49.9   18.1     "
          10.40171   20 45 56.05   -15 49 50.5   17.0     "
          10.41321   20 45 56.83   -15 49 51.3   17.4     "
          10.41895   20 45 57.19   -15 49 51.3   17.5     "

Four co-added 45-s follow-up images taken by R. A. Kowalski on June 10.4 with
the Mount Lemmon 1.5-m reflector show a slightly diffuse coma 10" in diameter
with a broad, diffuse tail extending at least 20" in p.a. 240 deg.  Additional
follow-up images taken at about the same time by A. R. Gibbs with the Steward
Observatory's 1.0-m reflector at Mt. Lemmon show a coma of size 8" x 7"
elongated in the direction of a broad, possibly fan-shaped 15"-long tail in
p.a. 260 deg.  After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP
webpage, H. Sato (Tokyo, Japan) reported that images taken with an iTelescope
0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph at Siding Spring on June 11.6 show the object to be
moderately condensed with a coma 20" in diameter and no tail on twenty 60-s
stacked images; the magnitude was 17.7 through a luminance filter (w-band),
as measured within a circular aperture of radius 10".3.
     The available astrometry (including pre-discovery Catalina observations
by Kowalski at Catalina), the following preliminary elliptical orbital
elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-L62.

     T = 2014 June 29.0341 TT         Peri. = 178.8601
     e = 0.769892                     Node  = 115.5445  2000.0
     q = 1.852706 AU                  Incl. =   6.2683
       a =  8.051477 AU    n = 0.0431411    P =  22.85 years


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

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 June 15                     (CBET 3902)              Daniel W. E. Green