[IAUC] CBET 3252: 20121011 : COMET P/2012 T1 (PANSTARRS)

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                                                  Electronic Telegram No. 3252
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
CBAT Director:  Daniel W. E. Green; Hoffman Lab 209; Harvard University;
 20 Oxford St.; Cambridge, MA  02138; U.S.A.
e-mail:  cbatiau en eps.harvard.edu (alternate cbat en iau.org)
URL http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/index.html
Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network


COMET P/2012 T1 (PANSTARRS)
     Richard Wainscoat, Henry Hsieh, and Larry Denneau report the discovery
of a comet in exposures taken with the 1.8-m Pan-STARRS 1 telescope at
Haleakala on Oct. 6 and 8 (discovery observations tabulated below); Hsieh
notes that the comet shows an extended point-spread function (FWHM 1".5)
relative to the PSFs of nearby stellar objects (FWHM 1".07).  D. J. Tholen
reports confirmation of cometary activity via six 180-s R-band images taken on
Oct. 9.4 and 10.5 UT by Marco Micheli and Garrett T. Elliott with the 2.24-m
University of Hawaii reflector at Mauna Kea, with Micheli noting the
clearly-non-stellar object to be slightly elongated in the east-west
direction.  After posting on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP webpage, other
CCD astrometrists have also commented on the object's cometary appearance.
H. Sato (Tokyo, Japan; remotely using a 0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph at the RAS
Observatory near Mayhill, NM, U.S.A.; Oct. 10.3) finds a round coma 10" in
diameter of magnitude 19.9 (as measured within a circular aperture of radius
5".7) with a tail 12" long toward p.a. 250 degrees.  L. Buzzi (Varese, Italy;
0.60-m f/4.6 reflector; Oct. 11.04-11.07) writes that stacked images show the
object to be diffuse with a 10" coma of red mag 19.8 that is elongated for at
least 15" in p.a. 253 deg.  L. Buzzi, H. Devore, S. Foglia, and T. Vorobjov
report that twenty stacked exposures taken by R. Holmes (Ashmore, IL, USA)
with a 0.61-m f/4 astrograph on Oct. 11.3 show a round 12" coma of mag
19.3-19.6 and a tail 15" long toward p.a. 240 degrees.

     2012 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     Oct.  6.53220    3 17 52.51   + 4 03 00.4   20.7
           6.57276    3 17 51.51   + 4 02 56.3   20.6
           6.58624    3 17 51.20   + 4 02 54.9   20.6
           8.44990    3 17 07.29   + 3 59 44.2   20.8
           8.53056    3 17 05.09   + 3 59 36.0   20.7
           8.54425    3 17 04.72   + 3 59 34.6   20.9

The available astrometry (including prediscovery Pan-STARRS observations
from 2011 July 28 identified by G. V. Williams), the following elliptical
orbital elements by Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2012-T55.

                    Epoch = 2012 Nov.  9.0 TT
     T = 2012 Nov. 21.89054 TT        Peri. = 323.21593
     e = 0.2063529                    Node  =  83.98065 2000.0
     q = 2.4191670 AU                 Incl. =  11.40012
       a =  3.0481647 AU   n = 0.18520232   P =   5.32 years


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

                         (C) Copyright 2012 CBAT
2012 October 11                  (CBET 3252)              Daniel W. E. Green