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Comet 442P/McNAUGHT   -  (= 2000 W6? = 2011 Q3 = 2022 G1)

Discovery:  

Rob McNaught discovered a 19th magnitude comet on CCD images taken with the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring on 2011 August 29.74. The comet reached perihelion at 2.4 au in August and has a period of 11 years.

Recovery:

An object observed on Jan. 11 UT at Purple Mountain Observatory, XuYi Station, reported as an NEOCP candidate was identified by the MPC as being a recovery of comet P/1997 B1 (Kobayashi).  The MPC then located an ITF tracklet taken on 2021 Nov. 29 at Kitt Peak-Bok (V00).  Additional detections were subsequently found by R. Weryk in Pan STARRS 1 (F51) and Pan STARRS 2 (F52) images from Nov. 2021 and Jan. 2022, noting a very condensed coma and 2" tail in the Jan. images.Hirohisa Sato recovered 2011 Q3 at 20th magnitude in images taken with the 0.51-m f/6.8 iTelescope astrograph at Siding Spring on 2022 April 5.79, with confirming images taken with the same telescope five days later. [MPEC 2022-H01, CBET 5115, 2022 April 16/19].  The comet is at perihelion at 2.3 au in August.  Following the recovery Syuichi Nakano was able to link isolated observations made on 2000 November 28.21 by Spacewatch to the comet.  He notes that the comet passed 0.75 au from Jupiter in 1990 and 0.53 au in 2002, in encounters that made changes mostly to the angular elements.

Photometric data obtained from FOCAS-II software

                                   10x10  20x20  30x30  40x40  50x50  60x60   SNR   SB   COD

COMET         UTC                    +/-    +/-    +/-    +/-    +/-    +/-     N  FWHM  CAT

------------  -------------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  ----  ----  ---

442P          29/09/2022 21:57:37  17.93  17.82  17.77                        6.3  17.5  B96

442P          29/09/2022 21:57:37*  0.01   0.22   0.09                          2   3.3  Gai

                                                                     AFRHO         LOG

COMET         UTC                   DELTA    r    BOX "   MAG   RSR    CM    +/-  AFRHO  OBS

------------  -------------------   -----  -----  -----  -----  ---  -----  ----  -----  ---

442P          29/09/2022 21:57:37    1.37   2.35  20.12  17.82    6      7     1  0.868  B96