C/1996 E1 NEAT
more info
Comet C/1996 E1 was discovered on 15 March 1996 by Near-Earth-Asteroid Tracking Team (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), that is about 4.5 months before its perihelion passage.This comet was last observed in the mid-October 1996.
Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 25 September 1996 (1.168 au), about 2 months after its perihelion passage.
This is a comet with nongravitational effects strongly manifested in positional data fitting.
Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 0.578 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 2.31 au – 1.36 au (perihelion) – 1.76 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers rather moderate planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; these perturbations lead to a more tight future orbit.
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska 2020.

solution description
number of observations 249
data interval 1996 03 15 – 1996 10 12
data type significantly more measurements before perihelion (PRE+)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 2.31 au – 1.36 au (perihelion) – 1.76 au
type of model of motion NS - non-gravitational orbits for standard g(r)
data weighting YES
number of residuals 492
RMS [arcseconds] 0.60
orbit quality class 1b
orbital elements (heliocentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1996 02 07
perihelion date 1996 07 27.35305291 ± 0.00038457
perihelion distance [au] 1.35878155 ± 0.00001264
eccentricity 1.00079315 ± 0.00001209
argument of perihelion [°] 81.117775 ± 0.000510
ascending node [°] 149.841668 ± 0.000048
inclination [°] 114.473203 ± 0.000231
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] -583.72 ± 8.90
Time distribution of positional observations with corresponding heliocentric (red curve) and geocentric (green curve) distance at which they were taken. The horizontal dotted line shows the perihelion distance for a given comet whereas vertical dotted line — the moment of perihelion passage.
non-gravitational parameters
A1 [10-8au/day2] 6.9403 ± 0.7435
A2 [10-8au/day2] 0.55214 ± 0.37555
A3 [10-8au/day2] 0.08711 ± 0.23275
m -2.15
n 5.093
k -4.6142
r0 [au] 2.808
α 0.1113