Circular No. 7126

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COMET 1999 E1

Weidong Li and M. Modjaz, Department of Astronomy, University of California at Berkeley, report the discovery of a comet in the course of the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (cf. IAUC 6627; with the participation of J. Y. King, M. Papenkova, R. A. Johnson, A. Friedman, R. R. Treffers and A. V. Filippenko). The object was found automatically by the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), recorded by Modjaz as a supernova candidate, and recognized by Li as a comet. Li then used the equipment to make confirmatory observations three nights later. The comet shows an apparent tail in p.a. about 120 deg. Available unfiltered CCD astrometry:

          1999   UT          R.A. (2000)               Decl.                   m1
   Mar. 13.17569           6 24 42.94         + 4 41 24.2               16.5
             16.14473          6 25 40.92          + 5 16 38.0              16.8
             16.16436          6 25 41.29          + 5 16 51.7              16.7
             16.19431          6 25 41.93          + 5 17 12.7              16.8

Circular No. 7127

COMET C/1999 E1 (LI)

Further CCD precise positions have been reported as follows:

         1999 UT            R.A. (2000)                Decl.          m1      Observer
  Mar. 17.01175         6 25 59.36            + 5 26 47.0      16.3        Jacques
            17.02198        6 25 59.56            + 5 26 55.7      16.0              "
            17.02439        6 25 59.72            + 5 26 55.8      15.6          Griffin
            17.04863        6 26 00.14            + 5 27 12.2      15.6              "
            17.46832        6 26 09.44            + 5 32 07.8      17.2        Garradd
            17.47269       6 26 09.55             + 5 32 11.0      17.1             "

C. Jacques and L. Duczmal (Serra da Piedade). 0.3-m f/3.3 Schmidt-Cassegrain.
I. P. Griffin, R. C. Maddison, R. K. Fox and W. Weimer (Cocoa). 0.3-m f/5 reflector.
G. J. Garradd (Loomberah). 0.45-m f/5.4 reflector.

Parabolic orbital elements from 10 observations Mar. 13-17:

T = 1999 Mar. 30.763 TT              Peri. = 339.606          Node = 127.230 2000.0
q = 4.05520 AU                             Incl. = 47.246  

1999 TT        R. A. (2000)       Decl.      Delta         r          Elong.       Phase     m1
Mar. 13         6 24.66          + 4 39.3       3.706     4.058      103.7           13.8     15.4
         18         6 26.36          + 5 38.3       3.773     4.057        99.4           14.0     15.5
         23         6 28.43          + 6 35.2       3.842     4.056        95.2           14.2     15.5
         28         6 30.88          + 7 29.8       3.913     4.055        91.0           14.2     15.5
Apr.    2         6 33.66          + 8 22.1       3.985     4.055        86.9           14.2     15.6
           7         6 36.78          + 9 12.0       4.057     4.056        82.8           14.2      15.6
         12         6 40.20          + 9 59.5       4.130     4.057        78.8           14.0      15.7