------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 3063 2015 Mar 05 12.34UT 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 Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.theastronomer.org ------------------------------------------------------------------- AL COMAE BERENICES According to AAVSO, Kevin Hills reports AL Com in outburst: 2015 Mar. 04.58200, 14.528. An alert was also received from Gary Poyner. Jeremy Shears (Cheshire, England) imaged the field under poor conditions of thin haze and strong moonlight: Mar 4.916 14.3C Gary Poyner adds: AL Com is type UGWZ (VSX), and is observed as part of the BAAVSS Recurrent Objects Programme.  The last recorded outburst occurred during 2013 December (C. Gualdoni) - a very short cycle for type UGWZ. COMET C/2015 D1 (SOHO) K. Battams, Naval Research Laboratory, reports that Worachate Boonplod found images of a comet in public SOHO/LASCO C3 satellite images; Battams notes that the comet's image appeared tiny at first (just above the noise at mag about 9) and gradually brightened as it neared the sun, but was surprised to see that it then dramatically brightened to magnitude about 1.5 as it crossed into the C2 field-of-view -- when a short, faint tail appeared (Feb. 19) and remained visible for the rest of the comet's visible passage (fading to mag around 6 by the time it left LASCO's field-of-view (Feb. 21.77 UT). 2015 UT R.A. (2000) Decl. Mag. Feb. 18.00423 21 39 55 - 6 32.5 9.1 M. Knight, Lowell Observatory, has analyzed the SOHO images and reports that the comet was first visible late on Feb. 17 right at the detection limit in C3 (mag about 9.5-10), and peak brightness occurred around Feb. 19.9 at an apparent V magnitude of about 1.3. It showed much more cometary appearance during the second half of the visible apparition, and the tail seemed more distinct as it was fading. Dan Green relays: pre- and post-perihelion solutions were required to fit the observations; together with the appearance of the tail near perihelion and rapid brightening, it is possible that some large physical change (perhaps splitting) occurred around that time. >From 210 pre-perihelion observations (Feb. 18-19): T = 2015 Feb. 19.7514 TT Peri. = 235.9476 Node = 96.1211 2000.0 q = 0.028306 AU Incl. = 69.9509 >From 211 post-perihelion observations (Feb. 19-21): T = 2015 Feb. 19.7471 TT Peri. = 234.7391 Node = 96.0501 2000.0 q = 0.028115 AU Incl. = 70.2855 M. Masek, Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences, Prague et. al. report that comet C/2015 D1 is visible as a cigar-shaped object with no bright condensation at all at the expected position on nineteen 30-s stacked CCD images obtained on Feb. 27.800-27.814 UT using the 0.15-m f/2.8 refractor at the BOOTES-1 astronomical station at El Arenosillo, Spain. The size of the elongated dust cloud is about 31' x 5' toward position angle 82 degrees (spanning p.a. 77 -93 degrees). The estimated total V magnitude is 8.0 +/- 0.3. Guy M Hurst