C/2006 S3 (LONEOS)

DEPARTED

Type: Hyperbolic Perihelion date: 14 April 2012 Perihelion distance (q): 5.2 Aphelion distance (Q) : n/a Period (years): n/a Eccentricity (e): 1.00 Inclination (i): 166.0 JPL orbit diagram COBS lightcurve A 19th magnitude comet was discovered by LONEOS on 19 September 2006 and when posted on the NEOCP was confirmed as cometary by Peter Birtwhistle, Richard Miles and others. Perihelion was near 5.1 AU in April 2012. The comet reached 12th magnitude near the time of perihelion. There is considerable scatter in the magnitude estimates, but they are best fitted by a linear type light curve. Brian Marsden notes on MPEC 2007-O19 [2007 July 19] that the "original" and "future" barycentric values of 1/a are -0.000210 and -0.000255 (+/- 0.000244) AU^-1, respectively. The negative "original" value suggests that this could be a comet from outside the solar system, however the error range does include a small positive value, which would indicate a comet from the Oort cloud. Further observations should reduce the uncertainty. Observations (VEMag = visual equivalent magnitude) Date 10x10 mag Error VEmag Coma ' 26-Jan-13 14.96 0.02 13.3 0.3 22-Feb-13 14.66 0.08 12.8 0.8 08-Mar-13 14.93 0.02 13.0 0.6 18-Mar-13 14.60 0.02 12.6 0.5 06-Apr-13 14.37 0.04 12.3 0.7 19-Apr-13 14.49 0.01 12.6 0.4 02-May-13 14.56 0.01 12.5 1.9 07-Jun-13 15.00 0.04 13.1 0.6 25-Jun-13 15.18 0.04 13.2 0.4 08-Jul-13 15.19 0.03 13.4 0.7 19-Jul-13 15.28 0.04 13.8 0.4 29-Jul-13 15.51 0.02 13.7 0.5 09-Mar-14 15.75 0.04 13.4 0.5 21-Mar-14 15.81 0.03 13.4 0.4 05-Apr-14 15.85 0.03 13.8 0.6 18-Apr-14 15.98 0.03 13.2 0.3 29-Apr-14 16.10 0.03 13.9 0.3 23-May-14 16.37 0.03 13.2 0.2 02-Jun-14 16.40 0.05 13.1 0.3 11-Jul-14 16.70 0.09 14.2 0.3 07-Dec-14 17.07 0.47 14.0 0.2 17-Dec-14 17.09 0.04 14.2 0.2 25-Dec-14 17.11 0.02 14.4 0.2 16-Jan-15 17.10 0.05 14.3 0.2