Circular No. 6652

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION

Mailstop 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

IAUSUBS@CFA.HARVARD.EDU or FAX 617-495-7231 (subscriptions) BMARSDEN@CFA.HARVARD.EDU or DGREEN@CFA.HARVARD.EDU (science)

    URL http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/cbat.html

Phone 617-495-7244/7440/7444 (for emergency use only)

COMET C/1997 J2

Selected precise CCD positions have been reported as follows:

1997 UT α_{2000} δ_{2000} m_{1} Observer
May 5.28542 10^{h}56^{m}33.^{s}67 +73^{o}58′55′′.1  Mueller
9.50429 10 52 54.23 +73 49 13.8 13.3 Abe
9.51117 10 52 53.94 +73 49 12.9  _{”}
9.51146 10 52 53.81 +73 49 12.5 13.5 Asami
9.51429 10 52 53.64 +73 49 12.0  _{”}
9.52729 10 52 53.01 +73 49 10.3 12.9 Kojima
9.54243 10 52 52.28 +73 49 07.7  _{”}
9.61803 10 52 48.85 +73 48 56.3  Ito
9.62078 10 52 48.77 +73 48 54.5  _{”}
9.83005 10 52 39.47 +73 48 23.3 14.3 Tichá
9.84751 10 52 38.65 +73 48 20.6  _{”}
9.92469 10 52 35.14 +73 48 07.9 14.8 Kolény
9.93713 10 52 34.60 +73 48 06.3 14.5  _{”}

J. Mueller (Palomar). 1.2-m Oschin Schmidt. Prediscovery image, 3 mm

from C/1997 J1 plate edge; tail to south. Reduction by G. V. Williams. H. Abe (Yatsuka). 0.26-m f/6.0 reflector. Communicated by S. Nakano. A. Asami (Hadano). 0.28-m f/5.0 reflector. Communicated by Nakano. T. Kojima (Chiyoda). 0.25-m f/6.0 reflector. Communcated by Nakano. K. Ito (Nishi Kobe). 0.25-m f/6.3 Schmidt-Cassegrain. J. Tichá and M. Tichý (Kleť). Measurer M. Tichý. 0.57-m f/5.2 reflector.

Coma 1′ in diameter, tail > 2′ long in p.a. 184^{o}. P. Kolény and L. Kornoš (Modra). 0.6-m f/5.5 reflector.

Parabolic orbital elements from 20 observations May 5–9:

T = 1996 Aug. 12.032 TT  ω = 14.^{o}462
Ω = 161.021 }2000.0
q = 3.75857 AU  i = 99.112
1997TT α_{2000} δ_{2000} Δ r ϵ β m_{1}
May 7 10^{h}55.^{m}0 +73^{o}55.^{′}2 4.462 4.429 81.^{o}6 13.^{o}0 12.7
12 10 51.2 +73 42.6 4.532 4.451 79.0 12.9 12.8
17 10 48.7 +73 27.7 4.600 4.474 76.6 12.7 12.8
22 10 47.5 +73 11.2 4.666 4.497 74.2 12.5 12.9
27 10 47.4 +72 53.6 4.729 4.520 72.0 12.3 12.9
June 1 10 48.3 +72 35.2 4.791 4.544 69.9 12.1 13.0
1997 May 9  \begin{matrix}c \\ ◯ \end{matrix} Copyright 1997 CBAT  Brian G. Marsden