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 (heliocentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1996 02 07
perihelion date 1996 07 27.35320557 ± 0.00045060
perihelion distance [au] 1.35877135 ± 0.00001759
eccentricity 1.00079117 ± 0.00001325
argument of perihelion [°] 81.118288 ± 0.000766
ascending node [°] 149.841684 ± 0.000051
inclination [°] 114.473164 ± 0.000256
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] -582.27 ± 9.75
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] 6.7637 ± 0.7566
A2 [10-8au/day2] 0.71326 ± 0.37216
A3 [10-8au/day2] 0.11037 ± 0.23222
m -2.15
n 5.093
k -4.6142
r0 [au] 2.808
α 0.1113
ΔT [days] -6.0590 ± 5.81