THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 227 1988 Dec 18  21.22UT.
Telecom Gold 72:MAG60138
Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16, Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke,
Hants, RG22 4PP, England. Telephone:(0256)471074.Int:+44256471074
Telex:265871(MONREF G) Quote"72:MAG60138 ATT G.HURST"in FIRST line.
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COMET 1988q (SMM 7)
During this past week A. L. Stanger, High Altitude Observatory,
discovered a bright sungrazing comet during routine inspection of
the coronagraph/polarimeter images from the Solar Maximum Mission.
O.C.St. Cyr, Goddard Space Flight Center,communicates the following
reductions by D. Pitone and B. Twambly, SMM Flight Dynamics
Facility, of Stanger's measurements (accuracy 0.1 solar radii and 1
deg p.a.):

     1988 UT            R.A. (1950) Decl.
     Oct. 24.68333    13 52 10     -12 21.6
          24.74861    13 54 05     -12 12.6

Another observation at Oct. 24.81 had the comet's head under the
occulting disk, and the comet was not detected as it receded from
the sun. As in the case of SMM 5 some 13 days earlier (cf. IAUC
4668), parts of the tail of SMM 7 saturated the vidicon detector,
suggesting that SMM 7 was also brighter than mag -4.  The tail was
straight and had a sharp southern edge. Computations by the
undersigned show that the observations can be represented within 1
arcmin by the orbital elements for SMM 5 and T = 1988 Oct. 24.87ET,
and the fit is even better with T= 1988 Oct. 24.88 ET and q changed
from 0.0053 to 0.0058 AU.                                 IAUC 4692

SUPERNOVA 1988Z IN MCG +03-28-022
C.Pollas, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur reports his discovery
with the 0.9-m CERGA Schmidt of a possible supernova in the above
galaxy (RA 10h49.2m DEC +16 16',1950). The object of 17.4 on Dec 14
is 11" east, 2" south of the nucleus.                     IAUC 4691

TA INDEX
We welcome Mike Collins to our group. His mailbox is 72:MAG36908.

Guy M Hurst