Circular No. 7948

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)

CBAT@CFA.HARVARD.EDU (science)

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

COMET 2002 O6

Preliminary parabolic orbital elements from MPEC 2002-P10:

T = 2002 Sept. 9.418 TT  ω = 78.^{o}703
Ω = 330.959 }2000.0
q = 0.49467 AU  i = 58.666
2002 TT α_{2000}  δ_{2000}  Δ  r  ϵ  β  m_{1}
Aug. 4 4^{h}25.^{m}20 − 6^{o}35.^{′}5 0.290 0.960 70.^{o}9 92.^{o}5 7.1
5 4 39.30 − 3 09.5 0.279 0.942 67.2  96.9 7.0
6 4 54.42 + 0 33.2 0.270 0.925 63.3 101.6 6.8
7 5 10.54 + 4 29.4 0.263 0.908 59.2 106.4 6.7
8 5 27.61 + 8 34.5 0.259 0.891 54.9 111.3 6.6
9 5 45.52 +12 42.1 0.258 0.873 50.7 116.2 6.5
10 6 04.12 +16 45.1 0.259 0.856 46.6 120.7 6.4
11 6 23.19 +20 36.4 0.264 0.839 42.8 124.9 6.3
12 6 42.48 +24 10.2 0.271 0.822 39.4 128.5 6.3
13 7 01.74 +27 22.0 0.281 0.805 36.6 131.4 6.3
14 7 20.69 +30 09.6 0.293 0.789 34.3 133.6 6.3
16 7 56.71 +34 32.0 0.323 0.756 31.3 135.8 6.3
18 8 29.11 +37 28.1 0.361 0.723 30.0 135.5 6.4
20 8 57.24 +39 16.9 0.403 0.691 29.7 133.5 6.4
22 9 21.10 +40 16.5 0.449 0.661 29.9 130.4 6.5
24 9 41.09 +40 41.2 0.499 0.631 30.2 126.4 6.5

Visual m_{1} estimates and coma diameters: Aug. 2.79 UT, 7.9, 5′ (K. Yoshimoto, Yamaguchi, Japan, 20×100 binoculars); 3.85, 6.9, 6′ (A. Pearce, Nedlands, W. Australia, 20×80 binoculars).

COMETS C/2002 H7 and C/2002 M8 (SOHO) Further to IAUC 7936, D. Hammer reports measurements for two ad-

ditional comets found on SOHO website C2 images by D. Evans. The reduced astrometry and orbital elements by B. G. Marsden appear on MPEC 2002-P08.

Comet  2002 UT  α_{2000}  δ_{2000}
C/2002 H7 Apr. 23.911  2^{h}12.^{m}0  +11^{o}40′
C/2002 M8 June 16.465  5 34.0  +21 40

2002 August 3 \begin{matrix}c \\ ◯ \end{matrix} Copyright 2002 CBAT Carl W. Hergenrother