[IAUC] CBET 3583: 20130713 : COMET P/2013 N3 (PANSTARRS)

[quai en eps.harvard.edu]

                                                  Electronic Telegram No. 3583
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/2013 N3 (PANSTARRS)
     Bryce Bolin, Larry Denneau, Richard Wainscoat, Marco Micheli, and Henry
Hsieh report that an object discovered in images taken with the 1.8-m
Pan-STARRS1 telescope on Haleakala (discovery positions tabulated below, as
reported by Peter Veres), and posted on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP
webpage, has a diffuse, non-stellar appearance with a tail about 4" long in
p.a. 250 degrees in four 45-s exposures.  Micheli later added that Wainscoat
and he obtained confirmation images of the object on July 6.4 UT with the
3.6-m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (queue observer Lisa Wells), in which
nine 60-s stacked r-band exposures show a 4" tail in p.a. about 260 deg with
a slight coma having a FWHM of about 1".1 in 0".9 seeing conditions.
Additional 60-s r-band CFHT exposures taken on July 11.5 by Wainscoat,
Micheli, and P. Forshay show a short, broad, faint tail extending for
approximately 4" in p.a. 270 deg.

     2013 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.
     July  4.43936   20 04 24.67   -23 27 29.1   20.7
           4.45193   20 04 24.27   -23 27 30.8   20.6
           4.46451   20 04 23.87   -23 27 32.0   20.7
           4.47709   20 04 23.47   -23 27 33.3   20.7

The available astrometry, the following preliminary elliptical orbital
elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2013-N50.

     T = 2014 Feb.  9.5723 TT         Peri. = 322.8601
     e = 0.584704                     Node  =  17.9169  2000.0
     q = 3.048596 AU                  Incl. =   2.1701
       a =  7.340784 AU    n = 0.0495553    P =  19.89 years


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      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2013 CBAT
2013 July 13                     (CBET 3583)              Daniel W. E. Green