[IAUC] IAUC 9195: COMET P/2010 WK (LINEAR); 247P [25139-2011/04-R1]

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                                                  Circular No. 9195
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
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CBATIAU en EPS.HARVARD.EDU           ISSN 0081-0304
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Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network


COMET P/2010 WK (LINEAR)
     As first announced on CBET 2607, another apparently asteroidal
object discovered by the LINEAR project (discovery observation
tabulated below; first published on MPS 357719) has also been found
to be cometary in appearance by CCD astrometrists.  H. Sato, Tokyo,
Japan, observing remotely with a 0.50-m f/6.8 reflector (located at
the RAS Observatory near Mayhill, NM, U.S.A.) on 2010 Dec. 25.4 UT,
found a diffuse 15" coma and no tail; his exposures on Dec. 25.1
suggest that the coma had apparently expanded to 1' in diameter.
K. Kadota (Ageo, Japan, 0.25-m f/5 reflector) found the object to
be diffuse with central condensation and a coma of diameter 0'.8
(total mag 16.0), with no visible tail.  After hearing about the
cometary appearance of this object, Luca Buzzi (Varese, Italy)
writes that Enrico Prosperi (Castelmartini, Italy) found the object
to be clearly diffuse in his stack of CCD images taken with his
0.35-m reflector on 12.0.  Buzzi then obtained a series of images
on Dec. 26.72 with a 0.38-m f/6.8 reflector under moderate seeing
that showed the object to be diffuse with a 15"-20" coma but no
tail; another series of images taken by Buzzi in better seeing on
Dec. 26.8 reveal a 20" round coma and no tail.  S. Foglia writes
that a 12" round coma (total red mag 16.2-16.3) is found after
stacking five 120-s CCD exposures taken by S. Baroni, L. Buzzi, P.
Concari, G. Galli, M. Tombelli, and himself remotely with a 0.18-m
f/7.3 refractor (located at the Tzec Maun Observatory near
Cloudcroft, NM, U.S.A.) on Dec. 27.3.

     2010 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.   Observer
     Nov. 17.34056    5 20 13.88   +42 50 34.8   18.4   LINEAR

The following improved elliptical elements by G. V. Williams
(published on MPEC 2011-B41) are from 278 observations, 2010 Aug.
10-2011 Jan. 26 (mean residual 0".4).

                    Epoch = 2010 Oct. 11.0 TT
     T = 2010 Oct. 19.7438 TT         Peri. =  40.8445
     e = 0.692084                     Node  =  11.4876  2000.0
     q = 1.765152 AU                  Incl. =  11.4792
       a =  5.732578 AU    n = 0.0718090    P =  13.72 years


COMETS 247P/LINEAR AND 248P/GIBBS
     Comet P/2002 VP94 = P/2010 V3 (cf. IAUC 9190) has been
assigned the permanent number 247P.  Comet P/2010 W1 = 1996 TT_65
(cf. IAUC 9188) has been assigned the number 248P.

                      (C) Copyright 2011 CBAT
2011 January 30                (9195)            Daniel W. E. Green