Electronic Telegram No. 3915
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 M1 (PANSTARRS)
     B. Bolin and R. J. Wainscoat report the discovery of an apparent comet on
four 45-s w-band exposures taken with the Pan-STARRS1 telescope at Haleakala
on June 24 (discovery observations tabulated below); the object has a diffuse,
non-stellar appearance.

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     June 24.48928   20 44 07.77   -39 35 59.8   20.8
          24.49938   20 44 07.06   -39 36 03.3   20.6
          24.50948   20 44 06.34   -39 36 06.0   20.8
          24.51958   20 44 05.63   -39 36 09.8   20.8

Follow-up CCD images taken by Wainscoat (queue observer L. Wells) on June 25.5
UT with the 3.6-m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (with measurements by M.
Micheli and Wainscoat) show a broad, very-low-surface-brightness tail
approximately 4" long in p.a. 60 deg, and the coma had FWHM around 1".0 in
0".65 seeing, with the images tracked at the motion of the comet; additional
images taken on June 28.5 showed a 5" tail in p.a. about 80 deg.  After the
object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP webpage,  H. Sato (Tokyo,
Japan) obtained eleven stacked 60-s exposures with an iTelescope 0.51-m f/6.8
astrograph (+ luminance filter) at Siding Spring on June 25.5 that show a
strongly condensed coma 8" in diameter and no visible tail, with a w-band
magnitude of 19.4 as measured within a circular aperture of radius 6".5; his
ten stacked 60-s follow-up images on June 26.6 show a strongly condensed coma
8" in diameter, with the comet about a magnitude fainter.

The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic orbital elements
by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-N01.

     T = 2015 Aug. 19.7888 TT         Peri. = 335.6267
                                      Node  = 234.4873  2000.0
     q = 5.617050 AU                  Incl. = 160.2062


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      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 July 1                      (CBET 3915)              Daniel W. E. Green