Comet P/2012 SB₆ (Lemmon)

As announced on CBET 3251, an apparently asteroidal object discovered on images taken on 2012 Sept. 17 by R. A. Kowalski in the course of the Mount Lemmon Survey (discovery observations tabulated below), and designated 2012 SB₆ by the Minor Planet Center, was found to show cometary appearance by observers elsewhere. Henry Hsieh noted that images taken with the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on Oct. 8.42-8.49 UT showed a point-spread function that is extended relative to the PSF of nearby field stars. David J. Tholen and Marco Micheli noted that three 120-s follow-up images taken on Oct. 9.5 UT by Micheli and Garrett T. Elliott with the 2.24-m University of Hawaii reflector at Mauna Kea show a tail about 7" long in p.a. about 225 deg.

The following orbital elements by Gareth V. Williams (from 55 observations 2012 Sept. 14-Oct. 11, mean residual 0".6) were published on Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2012-T73.

 Epoch = 2012 Sept.30.0 TT
 T = 2012 Oct. 31.6672 TT Peri. = 12.6952
 e = 0.384560 Node = 9.5554 2000.0
 q = 2.406197 AU Incl. = 10.9845
 a = 3.909717 AU n = 0.1274929 P = 7.731 years
 

An ephemeris (based on above elements) is available here.

Images

Photometry

Photometric observations of this comet from the ICQ archive are available here.

Astrometry

A list of published articles/papers related to this comet from the Astrophysics Data System are available here.