Electronic Telegram No. 3972
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 R3 (PANSTARRS)
     R. Wainscoat reports the discovery of a comet on i-band CCD images
obtained with the Pan-STARRS 1.8-m Ritchey-Chretien reflector (discovery
observations tabulated below), the object appearing having a slightly
extended point-spread function (FWHM = 1".33, vs. about 1" for nearby stars).

     2014 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     Sept. 6.32856   19 30 58.41   +56 02 46.4   20.1
           6.34132   19 30 57.80   +56 02 44.0   20.2
           6.35409   19 30 57.18   +56 02 41.3   20.0
           6.36684   19 30 56.59   +56 02 38.6   20.1

After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP webpage, H.
Sato (Tokyo, Japan) found the object to be diffuse with a moderately condensed
coma of size 6" and w-band magnitude 20.1 as measured within a circular
aperture of radius 3".8 in ten stacked 60-s exposures taken on Sept. 12.2 UT
with an iTelescope 0.61-m f/6.5 astrograph (+ luminance filter) located at
Auberry, CA, U.S.A.
     The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic orbital
elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2014-S05.

     T = 2016 July  8.0264 TT         Peri. = 110.3780
                                      Node  = 334.9057  2000.0
     q = 7.476449 AU                  Incl. =  91.1528


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      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 September 16                (CBET 3972)              Daniel W. E. Green