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Comet P/2009 T2 (LA SAGRA)

Discovery:

The "La Sagra Sky Survey" (LSSS) team discovered a second comet with the 0.45-m f/2.8 reflector located at Sagra mountain in southeastern Spain on 2009 October 12.87. This object was 17th magnitude. The comet is at perihelion in mid January 2010 at 1.8 AU and has a period of 21 years.

Reiner Stoss added extra information:

The big surveys didn't miss it. As can be seen in the discovery MPEC and IAUC, Catalina did detect it several times before we did, but it went unnoticed into the huge batch of asteroid ONS data.

MPC then did not link the individual nights because they were not too close together *and* because you can't link them if you assume any realistic "asteroid orbit".

The question could be rather why Catalina missed the cometary nature. I can not answer this question, but I know that it is very easy to miss it. It almost happened to us too this time and for sure many times in the past.