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 NT - non-gravitational orbits for asymmetric, standard g(r)
data weighting YES
number of residuals 492
RMS [arcseconds] 0.60
orbit quality class 1b
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1697 06 13
perihelion date 1996 07 27.31105536 ± 0.00030693
perihelion distance [au] 1.36235278 ± 0.00001789
eccentricity 0.99996116 ± 0.00001328
argument of perihelion [°] 81.090611 ± 0.000771
ascending node [°] 149.760227 ± 0.000050
inclination [°] 114.474733 ± 0.000254
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 28.51 ± 9.75
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
1996e1n3.bmi
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.
Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of original swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.