------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1578 2000 Nov 15 19.14UT 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 C/2000 U5 (LINEAR) An object with unusual motion that was reported as asteroidal by the LINEAR survey (discovery observation below) and posted on the NEO Confirmation Page has been found to be cometary by other observers. The object seemed diffuse with a 14" coma and 18" tail in p.a. 170 deg on CCD images obtained by J. Ticha and M. Tichy (Klet) on Oct. 30.0 UT. 2000 UT R.A. (2000) Decl. m2 Oct. 29.38178 5 06 33.49 + 2 04 56.6 17.1 MPEC 2000-V02 contains the available astrometry and the parabolic orbital elements that produced the following ephemeris: 2000 TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase m1 Nov. 12 4 49.81 + 3 38.0 2.687 3.590 151.8 7.5 14.7 22 4 36.45 + 4 55.0 2.729 3.678 161.2 5.0 14.8 Dec. 2 4 23.16 + 6 17.3 2.809 3.767 164.1 4.1 15.0 IAUC 7515 (extract) SUPERNOVAE 2000dy-2000ei B. Schmidt, Australian National University, on behalf of the High-Z Supernova Search Team, reports the discovery of 11 supernovae on R-band CCD images taken with the Canada-France- Hawaii Telescope by J. Tonry, B. Barris, P. Garnavich, S. Holland, A. Riess, and himself; and on CCD images taken with the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory Blanco telescope by N. B.Suntzeff, SN 2000 UT R.A. (2000.0) Decl. R z Type 2000dy Oct. 25 23 25 35.93 - 0 22 34.0 22.7 0.61 Ia 2000dz Oct. 21 23 30 41.36 + 0 18 42.7 23.1 0.50 Ia 2000ea Oct. 25 2 09 54.02 - 5 28 17.8 23.3 0.42 Ia 2000eb Oct. 25 2 10 25.75 - 5 25 33.7 23.6 0.68 Ia 2000ec Oct. 21 2 11 32.03 - 4 13 56.1 22.7 0.47 Ia 2000ed Oct. 21 2 11 06.91 - 4 22 38.6 23.7 0.41 II? 2000ee Oct. 21 2 27 34.53 + 1 11 49.4 22.6 0.47 Ia 2000ef Oct. 21 2 28 10.30 - 1 11 03.6 23.2 0.41 II? 2000eg Oct. 21 2 30 21.05 + 1 03 48.5 22.5 0.54 Ia 2000eh Oct. 21 4 15 02.44 + 4 23 18.1 22.4 0.49 Ia 2000ei Oct. 21 4 17 07.18 + 5 45 53.1 22.8 0.60 II? IAUC 7516 (extract) NOVA IN M31 L. Donato, S. Garzia, V. Gonano, and G. Sostero, Remanzacco Observatory, report their discovery of an apparent nova at R.A. = 0h42m57s.17, Decl. = +41o07'15".4 (2000) measured by K. Korlevic at Visnjan). Unfiltered CCD magnitudes by Donato et al.: Sept. 22 UT, [18.5; 22.82, 17.6; 28.85, 18.1; Nov. 1.84, 18.7. IAUC 7516 Giovanni Sostero also advised us direct of the discovery and adds: "Up to now, our object is classified as a Nova only relying on its lightcurve. We have eight data points for it, and according the trend it has, it seems very unlikely that this object would be classified as something else than a "fast" Nova in M31 (brightness decline in 20 days equal to 2 magnitudes; absolute magnitude at 2.2 MLy equal to -7). The other possibility is that we caught a faint halo cataclismic variable of our Galaxy, just projected in the line of sight of M31. However a CV peaking close to mag 17 would be (very likely) already discovered in the extensive Palomar and Asiago surveys conducted in the previous years. Our monitoring of the area in the previous two months has shown nothing at the given position, nor is it seen on POSS plates or other Internet sources. Guy M Hurst