[neo_followup] Followup request for 14F2601 = possible very small, low-q comet in Southern hemisphere

Fri Apr 16 20:17:40 EDT 2021

Hi all,
Although currently 0.3 AU from Earth, I think this technically constitutes an NEO followup as 1) the objects MOID to Earth may be less than 0.1 AU, and 2) it's currently moving rapidly at 8 "/min and seems likely to peak at 15 "/min in a few days, so catching it soon is important.
14F2601 was found earlier today (or yesterday, for the Europeans/Asians) and having been recovered by 2 different other observatories, the orbit seems quite robust. Based on 8 hours of observation so far, it seems to have a very eccentric orbit (the minimum aphelion CNEOS's stat ranging gives among 1000 clones is ~3.9 AU, and the second lowest is ~4.9 AU - and that's completely ignoring all e>1 clones. So we, quite literally, >99.8% surely have a Jupiter-crosser on our hands.)
What makes this object arguably much more interesting is that it's quite small - H around 20 to 22. There are only a handful of distant asteroids with Q>10 AU dimmer than H=20, exactly 5 to be specific. And for a generous assumed slope of 20 (M1 = 20.0 in this case), there are precisely 3 known comets beyond Q>10 AU. No matter how you slice it, this object is rather unique.

Anyway in terms of observation, the object is currently in the far southern hemisphere with a declination of -47 and getting lower. It should be relatively accessible to some folks here at magnitude 19-20. The biggest limiting factor is its quick motion and rapidly increasing uncertainty, which as of your reading this is most likely over 100", and will be over 1000" in only a day. So time is very much of the essence here!
Here are geocentric ephemerides assuming e=1.0 for anyone who wants to try at it (don't worry about individual observatories, right now the uncertainty is much bigger than any parallax effects):
#Geocentric
Date (UTC) HH:MM   RA              Dec         delta   r     elong  mag  '/hr    PA   " sig PA
---- -- -- -----  -------------   -----------  ------ ------ -----  --- ------ ------ ---- ---
2021 04 17 00:00  11 52 04.166   -47 54 19.84  .24126 1.1896 136.2 19.8   8.50 249.6   112  68
2021 04 17 00:30  11 51 40.359   -47 55 48.56  .24093 1.1892 136.1 19.8   8.52 249.7   119  68
2021 04 17 01:00  11 51 16.466   -47 57 17.19  .24060 1.1888 136.0 19.8   8.54 249.8   126  68
2021 04 17 01:30  11 50 52.488   -47 58 45.72  .24028 1.1884 136.0 19.8   8.56 249.9   132  68
2021 04 17 02:00  11 50 28.424   -48 00 14.15  .23995 1.1879 135.9 19.8   8.59 249.9   139  69
2021 04 17 02:30  11 50 04.273   -48 01 42.49  .23963 1.1875 135.8 19.8   8.61 250.0   147  69
2021 04 17 03:00  11 49 40.036   -48 03 10.73  .23930 1.1871 135.8 19.8   8.63 250.1   154  69
2021 04 17 03:30  11 49 15.713   -48 04 38.86  .23898 1.1867 135.7 19.8   8.65 250.2   162  69
2021 04 17 04:00  11 48 51.302   -48 06 06.88  .23866 1.1863 135.7 19.8   8.68 250.3   170  69
2021 04 17 04:30  11 48 26.804   -48 07 34.80  .23833 1.1859 135.6 19.8   8.70 250.3   178  69
2021 04 17 05:00  11 48 02.218   -48 09 02.61  .23801 1.1855 135.5 19.8   8.72 250.4   186  69
2021 04 17 05:30  11 47 37.543   -48 10 30.30  .23769 1.1850 135.5 19.8   8.74 250.5   194  69
2021 04 17 06:00  11 47 12.781   -48 11 57.87  .23737 1.1846 135.4 19.8   8.77 250.6   203  69
2021 04 17 06:30  11 46 47.930   -48 13 25.33  .23705 1.1842 135.3 19.8   8.79 250.6   212  69
2021 04 17 07:00  11 46 22.990   -48 14 52.66  .23673 1.1838 135.3 19.8   8.81 250.7   221  70
2021 04 17 07:30  11 45 57.960   -48 16 19.87  .23640 1.1834 135.2 19.8   8.84 250.8   230  70
2021 04 17 08:00  11 45 32.841   -48 17 46.96  .23608 1.1830 135.1 19.8   8.86 250.9   240  70
2021 04 17 08:30  11 45 07.632   -48 19 13.91  .23577 1.1825 135.1 19.8   8.88 251.0   250  70
2021 04 17 09:00  11 44 42.333   -48 20 40.73  .23545 1.1821 135.0 19.8   8.90 251.1   260  70
2021 04 17 09:30  11 44 16.943   -48 22 07.42  .23513 1.1817 134.9 19.8   8.93 251.1   270  70
2021 04 17 10:00  11 43 51.463   -48 23 33.97  .23481 1.1813 134.9 19.7   8.95 251.2   280  70
2021 04 17 10:30  11 43 25.891   -48 25 00.38  .23449 1.1809 134.8 19.7   8.97 251.3   291  70
2021 04 17 11:00  11 43 00.228   -48 26 26.64  .23417 1.1805 134.7 19.7   9.00 251.4   301  70
2021 04 17 11:30  11 42 34.473   -48 27 52.76  .23386 1.1800 134.6 19.7   9.02 251.5   312  70
Best of luck to anyone trying to recover it. It seems you might need it.

~Sam
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