[BAA Comets] Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy

[denis buczynski]

Hello all,
Further details about the discovery and the first orbital elements have now been distributed by the MPC.



                                                 
Electronic Telegram No. 3934
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
CBAT Director:  Daniel W. E. Green; Hoffman Lab 209; Harvard
University;
 20 Oxford St.; Cambridge, MA  02138; U.S.A.
e-mail:  cbatiau at eps.harvard.edu (alternate
cbat at iau.org)
URL http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/index.html
Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network


COMET C/2014 Q2 (LOVEJOY)
     T. Lovejoy, Birkdale, Qld., Australia,
reports his discovery of a comet
on CCD images obtained with a 20-cm f/2.1 Schmidt-Cassegrain
telescope
(discovery observations tabulated below); he described the object as
small
and well condensed with diameter 15" and a short, faint tail 1'
long in p.a.
225 degrees in a crowded star field.

     2014
UT            
R.A. (2000) Decl.       Mag.  
Observer
     Aug. 17.71993    6 47
58.86   -41 48 39.3   14.8   Lovejoy
         
17.72627    6 47 59.54   -41 48 40.2  
14.9     "
         
17.73262    6 48 00.29   -41 48 39.4  
14.6     "
         
18.75659    6 49 36.11   -41 46 36.9  
14.7     "
         
18.76632    6 49 37.32   -41 46 36.2  
15.1     "
         
18.77605    6 49 38.24   -41 46 35.4  
14.9     "

After the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP
webpage, C.
Jacques, E. Pimentel, and J. Barros report that a 300-s CCD exposure
taken
with a 0.28-m f/2.2 astrograph at the SONEAR Observatory near
Oliveira,
Brazil, on Aug. 19.28 UT shows a condensed coma of diameter 25"
and red
magnitude 14.8.
     The available astrometry, the following
preliminary parabolic orbital
elements by G. V. Williams, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC
2014-Q10.

     T = 2015 Feb. 14.8649
TT         Peri. =
356.3469
                                     
Node  = 104.7467  2000.0
     q = 1.776752
AU                 
Incl. =  79.6007


NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are
sometimes
      superseded by text appearing later in
the printed IAU Circulars.