Electronic Telegram No. 4297
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
Mailing address:  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/2016 P1 (PANSTARRS)
     R. Wainscoat and R. Weryk report the discovery of another comet in four
45-s w-band exposures obtained with the 1.8-m Pan-STARRS1 telescope at
Haleakala on Aug. 1.4 UT (discovery observations tabulated below), in which
the object has a tail extending for approximately 4" to the southwest; the
nuclear condensation appears to be soft, with full-width half-maximum in a
co-added image of 1".5 arc seconds (compared to adjacent stars FWHM = 0".9 to
1".0).

     2016 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     Aug.  1.41197   21 32 11.60   -17 09 58.8   22.1
           1.42169   21 32 10.95   -17 09 57.2   21.9
           1.43141   21 32 10.27   -17 09 55.5   21.8
           1.44112   21 32 09.63   -17 09 53.8   21.8

After the comet was posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP webpage, other
CCD astrometrists have also commented on the object's cometary appearance.
Maury and J.-F. Soulier write that their stacked unfiltered CCD images taken
on Aug. 4.12-4.18 UT with a 0.4-m f/8 Ritchey-Chretien reflector at San Pedro
de Atacama, Chile, show a coma with diameter about 10" and a tail about 22"
long in p.a. about 215 deg.  J. V. Scotti reports that R-band images taken
with the Spacewatch 1.8-m f/2.7 reflector on Aug. 6.35-6.36 show an elongated
nuclear region of size about 3" x 5", elongated toward p.a. about 220 degrees;
there is a faint narrow tail extending 0'.81 in p.a. 227 degrees.  H. Sato,
Tokyo, Japan, writes that images taken with an iTelescope 0.70-m f/6.6
astrograph at Siding Spring on Aug. 7.6 show a star-like head with an
elongated coma of size 2" x 5" and a tail 8" long toward p.a. 90 degrees on
twenty-four stacked 60-s exposures; the w-band magnitude was 2.14 as measured
within a circular aperture of radius 3".3.
     The available astrometry, the following elliptical orbital elements by
G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2016-P119.

                    Epoch = 2015 Sept.15.0 TT
     T = 2015 Sept. 9.6161 TT         Peri. = 267.7040
     e = 0.293990                     Node  = 319.5436  2000.0
     q = 2.277417 AU                  Incl. =  25.5917
       a =  3.225758 AU    n = 0.1701204    P =   5.79 years


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      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2016 CBAT
2016 August 14                   (CBET 4297)              Daniel W. E. Green