COBS News archive

COBS - New analysis feature 2
December 27, 2010
A new feature has been added to COBS analysis page enabling the observer to plot the date of perihelion on the lightcurve graph.

Bright Prospects for Comet Elenin?
December 26, 2010
It does not look like much now — just a 19th-magnitude smudge tucked away in southwestern Virgo — but a newly discovered comet could become something special 10 months from now.

UA Catalina Sky Survey Discovers Possible Extinct Comet
December 24, 2010
The extraterrestrial rock is tumbling through space alongside thousands of similar objects in our solar systems main asteroid belt, roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Comet-like appearance of main belt asteroid (596) Scheila
December 19, 2010
S. Larson reports that images of the main-belt minor planet (596) show the object to be in apparent outburst with a comet-like appearance.

COBS - New analysis feature
November 17, 2010
A new feature has been added to COBS analysis page enabling the observer to filter the observation data by observation type.

Comet C/2010 U3 (Boattini)
November 07, 2010
A. Boattini reports his discovery of a faint comet with a moderately diffuse coma that is 6"-7" wide and a central condensation that is about 3"-4" in size on four 30-s co-added CCD exposures taken with the Mt. Lemmon 1.5-m reflector in Arizona.

EPOXI Visits Hartley 2
November 05, 2010
This morning EPOXI, the spacecraft formerly known as Deep Impact, flew within 435 miles (700 km) of the nucleus of Comet 103P/Hartley 2. Images taken during the encounter are being downloaded from the spacecraft throughout the day. A few of the images have been released by the EPOXI team and can be found here.

COMET 2010 V1
November 04, 2010
S. Nakano, Sumoto, Japan, reports the visual discovery of a comet independently by Kaoru Ikeya ...

Unexpected Complex Behaviour in Dust Production of Periodic Comet 103P/Hartley
November 03, 2010
Under the scope of CARA project, comet 103P/Hartley is continuously monitored by a group of dedicated observers, using small and medium size remote telescopes, now available worldwide.

Latest on Comet 103P/Hartley
October 22, 2010

Comet 103P/Hartley is currently in the middle of Auriga moving to the southeast at a little over 3° per day. With closest approach to Earth on Oct. 20 (0.121 AU) and closest approach to the Sun on Oct. 28 (1.059 AU), the comet is as big and bright as it will probably get for this return. Unfortunately, the bright Full Moon will make observing the comet difficult for the next week and a half.

Comet P/2010 T2 (PANSTARRS)
October 18, 2010
Richard Wainscoat reports the discovery of a comet with a coma diameter of approximately 4" on 45-s CCD images taken with the 1.8-m Ritchey-Chretien "Pan- STARRS 1" telescope (+ W filter; bandpass 400-700 nm) at Haleakala.

Comet P/2000 Y3 = 2010 Q1 (SCOTTI)
August 22, 2010
J. V. Scotti, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, reports his recovery of comet P/2000 Y3 on images obtained with the 0.9-m Spacewatch reflector at Kitt Peak.

Comet 237P/2010 L2 (LINEAR)
August 07, 2010
Comet P/2010 L2 = 2002 LN_13 (cf. IAUC 9152) has been given the permanent designation 237P.

The Edgar Wilson Award 2010
August 07, 2010
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory announces that the 2010 Edgar Wilson Award for the discovery of comets (cf. IAUCs 6936, 8962, 9066) is being divided among the following four individuals for three different comets ...

COBS - 1 month since announcement
June 24, 2010
It is 1 month since COBS was announced to public users.

Two new comets have been discovered.
June 24, 2010
A new comet was found by WISE spacecraft. Another comet discovery was reported by A.R.Gibbs ...

Comet Vales: 2010 Jun 17
June 19, 2010
We are now at 63 days post-outburst. A total of more than 86 minutes integration reaching a plate limit of V=24 shows ...

Comet P/2010 K2 (WISE)
June 04, 2010
Object reported by the WISE spacecraft without description and posted on the Minor Planet Centers NEOCP webpage, has been found to show cometary appearance...

Meeting on Asteroids and Comets in Europe
May 13, 2010
The conference MACE will take place in and around Višnjan/Tićan, Croatia, on the long weekend of May 21-23, 2010.

Observation of a dust spiral structure in periodic comet P/2010 H2 (Vales)
May 12, 2010
We observed the comet P/2010 H2 (Vales) in moonless conditions on May 1, 2010 using B, V and R photometric filters, as well as with the clear filter on the 0.6 m, f/3.3 Cichocki telescope at the Crni Vrh Observatory. The exposures, all of 8 minutes duration, were tracked on the comet and obtained between 19:46 and 20:31 UT. The pixel scale was 0.93 arcseconds.