C/2012 S3 PANSTARRS
more info
Comet C/2012 S3 was discovered on 27 September 2012 with Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is 11 months before its perihelion passage. It was observed until 4 April 2014 (see picture).
C/2012 S3 had its closest approach to the Earth on 1 August 2013 (1.338 au), about a month before its perihelion passage.
Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 1.52 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 4.25 au – 2.308 au (perihelion) – 3.30 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers rather small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that cause a tighter future orbit (see future barycentric orbits).

solution description
number of observations 749
data interval 2012 09 27 – 2014 04 04
data type significantly more measurements before perihelion (PRE+)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 4.25 au – 2.31 au (perihelion) – 3.3 au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion comet with determinable NG~orbit
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 1481
RMS [arcseconds] 0.39
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1712 10 13
perihelion date 2013 08 31.09809819 ± 0.00007906
perihelion distance [au] 2.31052410 ± 0.00000056
eccentricity 0.99991658 ± 0.00000164
argument of perihelion [°] 183.725669 ± 0.000029
ascending node [°] 121.294742 ± 0.000004
inclination [°] 112.894368 ± 0.000009
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 36.10 ± 0.71
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2012s3a5.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.