Circular No. 8533

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)

URL http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/cbat.html ISSN 0081-0304

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

COMET C/2005 K2 (LINEAR)

M. Bezpalko reports the LINEAR discovery of a comet with a short tail in p.a. 270^{o}. Following posting on the ‘NEO Confirmation Page’, R. Hutsebaut (Bruxelles, Belgium; remotely using the 0.25-m reflector at ‘New Mexico Skies Observatory’) writes that his CCD images from May 20.2–20.4 UT show the object to be very diffuse with a tail 1′ long in p.a. 270^{o}. Also, J. Young (Table Mountain Observatory, Wrightwood, CA, 0.6-m reflector) writes that his CCD images taken on May 20.4 show a large, elongated, very diffuse 8′′ coma of mag 17.5 with little central condensation and a faint, broad, 40′′-long tail spanning p.a. 255^{o}–275^{o}.

2005 UT α_{2000} δ_{2000} Mag. Observer
May 19.35543 22^{h}06^{m}50.^{s}32 +74^{o}57′29′′.4 18.7 LINEAR
19.36469 22 06 53.42 +74 58 09.3 18.8  _{”}
19.37391 22 06 55.75 +74 58 49.0 19.2  _{”}
19.38318 22 06 59.03 +74 59 31.5 19.0  _{”}
20.23898 22 11 51.51 +76 03 38.4 18.1 Hutsebaut
20.34618 22 12 32.09 +76 11 56.7 17.6  _{”}
20.35156 22 12 35.05 +76 12 19.9 17.3  _{”}
20.39306 22 12 50.39 +76 15 32.4 17.5 Young
20.40463 22 12 54.65 +76 16 26.4  _{”}
20.41898 22 13 00.62 +76 17 37.3  _{”}
20.42951 22 13 04.86 +76 18 27.9  _{”}
20.43854 22 13 08.32 +76 19 08.8  _{”}
20.44537 22 13 10.81 +76 19 41.7  _{”}

Very preliminary parabolic orbital elements (H_{7.5} = 18.0):

T = 2005 June 29.009 TT  ω = 206.^{o}479
Ω = 57.161 }2000.0
q = 0.67950 AU  i = 94.371
2005TT α_{2000}  δ_{2000}  Δ  r  ϵ  β  Mag.
May 20 22^{h}10.^{m}4 +75^{o}45.^{′}4 0.807 1.048 69.^{o}3 64.^{o}6 17.7
22 22 25.7 +78 24.9 0.760 1.020 68.6 67.5 17.5
24 22 54.1 +81 19.3 0.714 0.992 67.6 70.7 17.2
26 0 00.3 +84 17.5 0.669 0.965 66.4 74.2 17.0
28 3 04  +86 04.5 0.626 0.938 64.9 77.9 16.8
30 6 25.3 +83 55.1 0.587 0.912 63.0 82.0 16.5
2005 May 20  \begin{matrix}c \\ ◯ \end{matrix} Copyright 2005 CBAT  Daniel W. E. Green