Circular No. 5696

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION

Postal Address: Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Telephone 617-495-7244/7440/7444 (for emergency use only) TWX 710-320-6842 ASTROGRAM CAM EASYLINK 62794505 MARSDEN@CFA or GREEN@CFA (.SPAN, .BITNET or .HARVARD.EDU)

PERIODIC COMET BUS (1993b) J. V. Scotti, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, reports his recovery of

this comet with the Spacewatch 0.9-m telescope at Kitt Peak:

1993 UT  α_{2000}  δ_{2000}  m_{2}
Jan. 1.19512  5^{h}05^{m}01.^{s}43  +19^{o}27′56′′.9  21.8
1.20817  5 05 00.83  +19 27 56.1  21.0
1.22023  5 05 00.36  +19 27 56.4  21.5
1.23231  5 04 59.76  +19 27 55.7  21.6
21.13902  4 53 40.89  +19 21 00.7  22.1
21.15178  4 53 40.53  +19 21 00.4  21.8
21.16389  4 53 40.22  +19 21 00.6  21.7
21.17677  4 53 39.91  +19 21 00.3  21.8

The Jan. 1 images are stellar, but the Jan. 21 images showed the slightest hint of being nonstellar. The indicated correction to the prediction on MPC 19257 is ΔT = +0.05 day.

COMET OHSHITA (1992a_{1})

Improved orbital elements from MPC 21533:

Epoch = 1992 Oct. 25.0 TT

T = 1992 Nov. 1.5889 TT  ω = 310.^{o}0665
e = 0.991721  Ω = 138.3753 }2000.0
q = 0.664134 AU  i = 115.1232
1993 TT α_{2000}  δ_{2000}  Δ  r  ϵ  β  m_{1}
Feb. 2 22^{h}28.^{m}6 +75^{o}31.^{′}0 1.459 1.807 93.^{o}3 33.^{o}0 15.4
7 23 10.1 +73 57.7 1.583 1.878 90.9 31.7 15.7
12 23 40.7 +72 29.2 1.708 1.949 88.4 30.4 16.1
17 0 04.6 +71 11.1 1.836 2.019 85.7 29.2 16.4
22 0 24.0 +70 04.6 1.963 2.088 83.0 28.1 16.7
27 0 40.57 +69 09.5 2.090 2.157 80.3 26.9 16.9
Mar. 4 0 55.07 +68 24.9 2.216 2.225 77.6 25.8 17.2
9 1 08.13 +67 49.5 2.340 2.292 74.9 24.7 17.4
14 1 20.13 +67 22.4 2.462 2.359 72.3 23.7 17.7
19 1 31.36 +67 02.7 2.582 2.425 69.8 22.7 17.9
24 1 41.98 +66 49.5 2.699 2.491 67.3 21.7 18.1

1993 January 22 Daniel W. E. Green