58P/Jackson-Neujmin

Past, Present, and Future Orbits by Kazuo Kinoshita

Copyright © 1995 by Herman Mikuz (Crni Vhr Observatory, Slovenia) This CCD image was obtained by H. Mikuz on 1995 September 23. He used a 36-cm S-C telescope (working at f/6.8), CCD and V filter. This is a 300-second exposure. Discovery      Cyril Jackson (Union Observatory, South Africa) discovered this comet on September 20 while examining photographic plates exposed for minor planets on September 15. He described it as faint and diffuse, with a total magnitude of 12. On September 21, Grigory N. Neujmin (Simeis, Russia) independently discovered the comet. The comet was in Aquarius.      A prediscovery image was found by Rigaux (Uccle Observatory, Belgium) on a photographic plate exposed on September 9. Historical Highlights The five-week arc, coupled with an unfavorable next appearance in 1945, made the orbit at following apparitions very uncertain. At the 1953 apparition, Elizabeth Roemer searched positions where the comet would be expected if reaching perihelion 20 days earlier or up to 40 days later than predictions, but nothing was found. B. G. Marsden computed a new orbit in 1959, but searches could not be made in 1963 because of another unfavorable apparition. Marsden revised the computations again in 1968, and on September 6 and 7, 1970, Charles Kowal recovered the comet only 7 days off from Marsden's prediction. During the 1995 apparition the comet passed 0.4339 AU from Earth on September 13, making this nearly the best possible circumstance for observations. Total magnitudes reached 10 during October. Additional Images Copyright © 1995 by Tim Puckett This image was taken by Tim Puckett (Villa Rica, Georgia) on 1995 November 17.04, using a 0.30-m f/7 Meade LX-200 and an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera. It is a 300-second exposure. cometography.com