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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1498      2000 Feb 19 20.13UT
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
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EDITOR'S ABSENCE
The editor will be absent and unavailable from Feb 20 and will
not return until Feb 24. During that time urgent matters will be
dealt with by Nick James.
In the event of a potential discovery please e-mail Nick James at:
ndj@astro1.demon.co.uk
but in addition send a copy to the editor's usual mailbox to
ensure records stay complete.

COMET P/1999 WJ_7 (KORLEVIC)
An apparently asteroidal object discovered by Korado Korlevic
at Visnjan with a 0.41-m f/4.3 reflector + CCD (the discovery
observation below was first published on MPS 7912) was indicated on
some of his December images to be possibly "fuzzy", and cometary
nature has been confirmed by C. Hergenrother and S. Larson, Lunar
and Planetary Laboratory, who found a 13" coma elongated in p.a. 80
deg on a 600-s co-added R-band exposure taken on 2000 Feb. 7.25 UT
with the 1.54-m Catalina reflector.

     1999 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.        m2
     Nov. 28.94427    4 34 56.58   +24 51 51.8   17.9
IAUC 7368 (extract)

COMET C/2000 B4 (LINEAR)
Another apparently asteroidal object was reported by LINEAR and
posted on the NEO Confirmation Page.  This object has the orbit
of a centaur and was noted as appearing perhaps slightly diffuse
(P. Kusnirak, Ondrejov, 0.65-m reflector, Feb. 10) and 'soft' and
slightly larger than star images (D. Balam, Victoria, 1.82-m
reflector, Feb. 11).

     2000 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.        m2
     Jan. 29.24832    8 08 15.43   +37 03 04.0   19.4
IAUC 7368 (extract)

COMET C/2000 CT_54 (LINEAR)
Yet another apparently asteroidal LINEAR object that was posted on
the NEO Confirmation Page was noted to have a 15"-16" tail toward
the north-northwest on Feb. 12 by J. G. Ries, McDonald Observatory
(0.76-m reflector).

     2000 UT             R.A. (2000) Decl.        m2
     Feb.  2.44006   14 03 40.19   -21 20 28.4   18.9
IAUC 7368 (extract)

Guy M Hurst