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C/2009 E1 (Itagaki)

Orbit by Kazuo Kinoshita

Image of comet Itagaki on 2009 March 17
Copyright © 2009 by G. W. Kronk (St. Jacob, Illinois, USA)

G. W. Kronk obtained this image on 2009 March 17, using a 20-cm reflector and a MallinCam video camera. This is a stack of 60 two-second exposures.

Discovery

Koichi Itagaki (Takanezawa Observatory, Tochigi, Japan) discovered this comet on 2009 March 14.42. He was using a 21-cm reflector and a CCD camera. He gave the magnitude as 12.8. The comet was found using software written by H. Kaneda (Sapporo, Japan) to automatically detect moving objects. The first confirmation was made by R. Holmes (Astronomical Research Observatory, Charleston, Illinois, USA) on March 15.03, using a 61-cm reflector and CCD camera. He gave the magnitude of the condensation as 16.6. A second confirmation was obtained by E. Guido, G. Sostero, and P. Camilleri of Remanzacco Observatory (Italy) on March 15.1; however, noting the comet's position was too low in the sky to be imaged from their observatory, they accessed a telescope on the GRAS network in Mayhill, New Mexico (USA) and obtained the first image listed under "Additional Images" below. Their image revealed a central condensation of about magnitude 14.6, "a bright inner coma, having a diameter of about 1.4 arcmin, and faint external halo nearly 4 arcmin in diameter, slightly elongated toward South-West." They estimated the total magnitude as 11.0.

Historical Highlights

  • The first two parabolic orbits were calculated by B. G. Marsden on March 15. The first orbit used 19 positions from March 14 and 15. It determined the perihelion date as 2009 April 8.17. A short time later, it was reported that the positions by Itagaki had the incorrect time. After receiving the correct times, plus a few additional positions, Marsden used 33 positions from March 14-15 and determined the perihelion date as April 7.39. The perihelion date was given as 0.608 AU, indicating the comet could become fairly bright. Marsden's published ephemeris unfortunately revealed the comet was moving away from Earth at discovery and would be on the opposite side of the sun from Earth when it reach perihelion. The comet's elongation from the sun was subsequently decreasing, meaning the comet would be dropping lower and lower into evening twilight in the coming weeks.

  • Koichi Itagaki found the long-lost periodic comet Giacobini, with Hiroshi Kaneda, during September of 2008. He was also the first person to discover Comet Tago-Honda-Yamamoto on 1968 April 25, but was unable to report it before the comet was found elsewhere.

  • There were a number of early observations. J. J. Gonzalez Suarez (Aralla, alt. 1380 m, León, N. Spain) saw the comet with his 20-cm reflector on March 14.85 and gave the magnitude as 9.6. The coma was 4.5' across, with a DC of about 3. On March 15.85, Gonzalez Suarez found the comet unchanged in his 20-cm reflector, but his 25x100 binoculars revealed a magnitude of 9.5. Sergey Shurpakov (Baran', Belarus) observed the comet with his 25-cm reflector on March 16.85 and gave the magnitude as 10.2. He said the coma was 4' across, with a DC of 4.

    Additional Images

    Image of comet Lulin on 2009 March 15

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