Electronic Telegram No. 3930
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 O3 (PANSTARRS)
     R. Wainscoat reports the discovery of an apparent comet on four w-band
exposures taken with the 1.8-m Pan-STARRS1 telescope at Haleakala on July 30
(discovery observations tabulated below); the object appears clearly extended,
with a FWHM of approximately 1".5, compared to adjacent stars that have FWHM
of 1".05, and it has a tail extending for approximately 7" toward p.a. 300
degrees.

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     July 30.43307   20 26 50.91   -25 14 17.1   20.3
          30.44450   20 26 50.55   -25 14 19.0   20.3
          30.45590   20 26 50.21   -25 14 20.6   20.2
          30.46732   20 26 49.86   -25 14 22.4   20.5

After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP and PCCP
webpages, other CCD astrometrists have commented on the object's cometary
appearance.  S. Foglia finds that fifty stacked 20-s images taken by R. Holmes
(Ashmore, IL, USA; 0.61-m f/4 astrograph) on July 31.18-31.19 UT reveals an
elongated shape of size 4" x 9", elongated in p.a. 135 deg.  H. Sato, Tokyo,
Japan, writes that eight stacked 60-s exposures taken with an iTelescope
0.51-m f/6.8 astrograph (+ luminance filter) at Siding Spring on July 31.5
show a strongly condensed coma 10" in diameter with a faint tail 10" long
toward p.a. 270 degrees; the w-band magnitude as measured within a circular
aperture of radius 6".5 was 19.1.  R. Ligustri, Udine, Italy, reports that
his stacked images taken with an iTelescope 0.50-m f/4.5 reflector at Siding
Spring on July 31.6 show that the object has a coma larger than about 15".
T. Lister found a tail about 10" long in p.a. about 270 deg with very weak or
no coma visible on V-band images taken with a 1.0-m f/8 Ritchey-Chretien
telescope at Cerro Tololo on Aug. 2.23-2.24.

The available astrometry (including prediscovery Pan-STARRS1 observations from
July 8 identified by T. Spahr), the following elliptical orbital elements by
G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-P26.

                    Epoch = 2014 Apr. 13.0 TT
     T = 2014 Apr. 23.8674 TT         Peri. = 205.0481
     e = 0.380899                     Node  =  87.8085  2000.0
     q = 4.653865 AU                  Incl. =   7.8306
       a =  7.517135 AU    n = 0.0478218    P =  20.61 years


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      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 August 5                    (CBET 3930)              Daniel W. E. Green