------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1339 1998 Sep 22 06.24UT 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------- COMET P/1998 QP54 On Sept. 13, Roy A. Tucker (Tucson, AZ) reported his discovery of a comet in the course of his CCD asteroid-astrometry program with a 0.36-m f/11 Schmidt-Cassegrain at the Goodricke-Pigott Observatory. G. V. Williams, Minor Planet Center, then identified the comet with 1998 QP54, which had been reported by E. Bowell (observer W. D. Ferris, measurer B. W. Koehn) as an apparently quite ordinary minor planet in the course of LONEOS, the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search; the observations themselves, on Aug. 27 and 28, were published on MPS 2052). Williams then also identified single-night observations (also on Aug. 28) by LINEAR as belonging to the same object. Information about the object was then placed in The NEO Confirmation Page. In response, J. Ticha reported observations made at the Klet Observatory that showed a faint coma (diameter 17") and a 35" tail in p.a. 226 deg, and L. Sarounova reported from the Ondrejov Observatory on a narrow tail 5' long in PA135 and only a small coma. Observations were also reported by T. Spahr from the Catalina Sky Survey. The LONEOS and Tucker discovery observations are listed, and the complete set of currently available observations is on MPEC 1998-R27, which is also the source for the orbital elements and ephemeris below. The comet is clearly of short period, and it made a close approach to Jupiter early in 1992. 1998 UT R.A. (2000) Decl. m2 Observer Aug. 27.41419 0 31 51.89 +10 28 55.0 17.1 Ferris Sept.13.21368 0 22 19.28 +15 12 15.4 16.7 Tucker T = 1998 Oct. 6.698 TT Peri. = 30.177 e = 0.55537 Node = 342.001 2000.0 q = 1.88548 AU Incl. = 17.825 a = 4.24060 AU n = 0.112866 P = 8.73 years 1998 TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase m2 Sept 24 0 12.42 +17 49.9 0.909 1.889 162.3 9.3 16.8 29 0 07.41 +18 52.9 0.906 1.887 163.1 8.9 16.8 Oct. 4 0 02.45 +19 48.6 0.909 1.886 162.0 9.4 16.8 9 23 57.76 +20 37.0 0.917 1.886 159.6 10.7 16.9 IAUC 7012 SUPERNOVAE 1998du, 1998dv, 1998dw D. Reiss, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, reports that the Mount Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search Team has detected three new apparent supernovae: SN Date UT R.A. (2000.0) Decl. V Offset 1998du Aug. 14 0 45 11.73 -63 48 21.6 20.5 1".9 E, 0".8 N 1998dv Aug. 22 4 29 46.79 -61 30 25.4 20.2 2".1 W, 0".3 N 1998dw Aug. 28 1 09 11.56 -15 29 46.7 18.8 2".7 E, 1".1 N IAUC 7007 (extract) SUPERNOVA 1998dx IN UGC 11149 M. Modjaz, T. Shefler, E. Halderson, J. Y. King, W. D. Li, R. R. Treffers, and A. V. Filippenko, University of California at Berkeley, report their discovery of a supernova during the course of the Lick Observatory Supernova Search with the 0.8-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT). SN 1998dx was found and confirmed on unfiltered images taken on Sept. 10.2 (mag about 18.3) and 12.2 UT (mag about 17.9), respectively. The object is located at R.A. = 18h11m11s.89, Decl. = +49o51'40".7 (2000), which is about 20".9 east and 12".2 south of the nucleus of UGC 11149. IAUC 7011 (extract) Guy M Hurst