Is this another comet?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2191/...62d6649d_o.jpg

I was taking pictures of the Taurus constellation last night, 20080111. The picture on the web site has two sections: On the right is a small section of one of these constellation photos. The three bright stars near the bottom with the blue halo are delta 1,2,3 Tauri, mv=+4 approximately. This picture was taken at 20:55 PST. I placed a brown circle in the star chart on the left: It shows nothing at the center, but there is a greenish object at that position in the photo with mv=+10. The object passed close to TYC1280-01258-1 mv=+10.1 on the lower right at 20:16 PST, passed near HD284410 mv+10.4 at 20:55 PST in the attached shot, and passed very close to HIP20417, a mv=+5.9 M0III star, which looks yellow in the picture, a little left and above the center of the finding chart, at 21:18 PST. The object looks like a comet.

I saw the object while inspecting the first two pictures on the computer screen, where a 6 pixel shift was already detectable. I took the second pair 39 minutes later to check if the object was still there and noticed that it had moved 331 pixels relative to the stars, then took another pair 23 minutes later, just before clouds moved in. Between the second and the third pair the object traveled 219 more pixels in a straight line. From this I estimated that the object is travelling at about 180 arcsec/minute. Each shot used a 30 second exposure with a Nikon D40 and a 85 mm f/1.8 Nikkor lens, with a 10 second pause between shots. This setup reaches mv=+11.5 with a plate scale of 19"/pixel.

Anybody out there know what this mystery object is or was. I don't have an astrometry program on my computer to determine an orbit or to compare if this is/was a known comet, but I can supply the relative pixel positions of the object and the three stars in the images.

Thanks for any help.

hha

I don't see anything on the comets. You're on the ecliptic, in Taurus, there and far enough away from the equator that you probably weren't seeing some sort of geosync satellite being manuvered.

Do you do comet reporting? or plan to?

The Minor Planet Center has no reported comets or asteroids at that approximate position that were 15th magnitude or brighter at that time Jan 12.29, 2008, UT. My astrometry program only works with FITS format images so can't help you. It does appear to be a new comet. See if you can figure out where it will be tonight and get another image of it. You should be able to estimate it's position from how it was moving on your other shots. Sounds like it was moving fairly rapidly unfortunately. Someone must have a program that can convert to FIT format. I don't.

Rick

I just realized it is moving due north at several degrees an hour. Makes me wonder if it is from a booster that put something in very high polar orbit. Venting of fuel can cause that green color. It's odd for a comet to move that fast due north but not impossible, just unlikely.

Rick

I don't know who to contact. Do you?

Unfortunately the mystery object moved 180"/minute = 3 degrees per hour, so it is an exercise in spherical coordinates and a lot of look to calculate where it will be tonight, even with my 15x10 degree FOV. I will convert three of the images to FITS. If Rick can read them I may get a predicted position for tonight, and we hope it is clear.

hha

I have converted three of the files to FITS. How can I get them to you?

hha1

Is this the same object noted by tdvance 6 days ago?

Hyades star cluster--plus, gee, what is that smudge?

clop

I sent you a private message.

Rick

tvdance too noted it was traveling north.

Kind regards
Matt

If this is the same object, then the two sightings together may produce a good orbit, particularly since it would be a very unusual high inclination orbit. With good orbit I mean one which has skill in producing a re-sighting several days later.

hha1

This is very interesting....report it to CBA here:

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/HowTo...Discovery.html

Keith..

Hha1, a very interesting moving object any recent info on this speeding object. Great Capture welldone!