------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1334 1998 Aug 25 18.00UT Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074 INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK GMH at AST.STAR.RL.AC.UK WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.demon.co.uk/astronomer ------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTEROID IN ARIES (EC's 1329, 1331, 1332) Gareth Williams, Minor Planet Center, has designated this object 1998 QL2 and linked it to 1990 VP6. (MPEC Q22) R CrB Gary Poyner advises that R CrB has faded to around mag 6.5, whereas a week ago it was approx 6.0. It is unclear how active a fade this will turn out to be, but nightly monitoring is requested. COMET C/1998 Q1 (LINEAR) M. Bezpalko reports a LINEAR comet discovery. CCD astrometry by Blythe, Griffin, Hug, Shelus, Balam, Zoltowski and Garradd was reported on IAUC 6995. Preliminary parabolic orbital elements by Dan Green from 23 observations, Aug. 24-25: T = 1998 June 28.131 TT Peri. = 133.338 Node = 159.831 2000.0 q = 1.56032 AU Incl. = 32.021 1998 TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase m1 Aug. 15 22 05.22 + 7 34.7 0.712 1.692 157.2 13.4 15.5 20 22 07.35 + 3 39.1 0.725 1.719 163.5 9.6 15.7 25 22 09.29 - 0 13.6 0.745 1.748 169.3 6.2 15.8 30 22 11.14 - 3 56.3 0.773 1.779 172.5 4.2 15.9 Sept. 4 22 13.03 - 7 23.5 0.810 1.812 170.6 5.2 16.1 9 22 15.04 -10 31.1 0.854 1.847 165.7 7.7 16.3 14 22 17.24 -13 17.0 0.905 1.883 160.2 10.4 16.5 19 22 19.67 -15 40.5 0.963 1.920 154.7 12.9 16.8 24 22 22.40 -17 42.1 1.027 1.959 149.4 15.1 17.0 IAUC 6996 (extract) SUPERNOVAE 1998do AND 1998dp L. Germany reports that the Mount Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search Team (cf. IAUC 6639) has discovered two apparent supernovae on V and R CCD images taken by A. Graham with the Mount Stromlo 1.27-m telescope (+ Macho Camera), as follows: SN Date UT R.A. (2000.0) Decl. V Offset 1998do Aug. 1 1 14 30.92 + 0 28 13.0 19.0 0".2 E, 0".4 N 1998dp Aug. 14 21 58 28.12 -19 58 05.9 20.3 0".6 N The limiting V magnitudes for the observations were V about 19.5 and 20.5 on Aug. 1 and 14, respectively. Confirmation images were taken by A. Graham with the same telescope on Aug. 22 (limiting mag V about 20.5). SNe 1998do and 1998dp were not visible on images taken on 1997 Dec. 4 and on 1998 June 8. IAUC 6996 (extract) Martin Mobberley