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Comet C/2009 O4 (HILL)

Discovery: (IAUC  9059 )

R. E. Hill reports his discovery of another comet on CCD images taken with the Catalina 0.68-m Schmidt telescope on 2009 july 30; he notes that four stacked 20-s exposures in 2" seeing show the object to have a bright, nuclear condensation of size 15" x 20" that is elongated northwest- southeast, with no coma and a broad, diffuse tail about 2' long in p.a. 300 deg. After posting on the Minor Planet Center's 'NEOCP' webpage, other cometary astrometrists have noted the object's cometary appearance. Y. Ikari (Moriyama, Shiga-Ken, Japan, 0.26-m reflector, July 30.7 UT) reports coma diameter 0'.3 and a tail 0'.6 long in p.a. 315 deg. F. Fratev (Zvezdno Obshtestvo Observatory, Plana, Bulgaria, 0.35-m reflector, July 31.0) writes that sixty stacked 40-s unfiltered exposures reveal a coma nearly 28" in diameter and a tail about 1'.5 long in p.a. 320 deg. J. A. Henriquez (Tenerife, Spain, 0.2-m reflector, July 31.1; poor weather conditions) measures an 11" coma and a 14".5 tail in p.a. 317 deg. J. E. McGaha (Tucson, AZ, U.S.A., 0.36-m reflector, July 31.3) notes that six stacked 60-s images show an 8" bright round coma with a fan-shaped tail 35" long at p.a. 315 deg. W. H. Ryan (Magdalena Ridge 2.4-m reflector, July 31.35-31.38) notes a tail at p.a. about 290 deg. G. Hug (Scranton, KS, U.S.A., 0.56-m reflector, July 31.4) reports a short, broad tail in p.a. about 310 deg. 2009 UT R.A. (2000) Decl. Mag. Observer July 30.37424 0 33 09.91 + 7 38 01.8 16.3 Hill The available astrometry, the following preliminary parabolic orbital elements by B. G. Marsden, and an ephemeris appear on MPEC 2009-O56. T = 2009 Dec. 1.451 TT Peri. = 210.640 Node = 173.459 2000.0 q = 2.86118 AU Incl. = 94.583