C/2012 K8 Lemmon
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Comet C/2012 K8 was discovered on 30 May 2012 with Mount Lemmon survey, that is about 2.2 years before its perihelion passage. It was observed during five oppositions until 8 June 2016.

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 21 June 2014 (6.120 au), about 2 months before perihelion passage.

Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 4.02 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 8.40 au – 6.463 au (perihelion) – 7.81 au.

This Oort spike comet suffers very tiny planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system and in the next perihelion passage it will be an Oort spike comet.

See also Królikowska and Dones 2023.

solution description
number of observations 319
data interval 2014 08 19 – 2016 06 08
data arc selection data generally limited to post-perihelion (POS)
range of heliocentric distances 6.46 au – 6.46 au (perihelion) – 7.81 au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion NG effects not determinable
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 603
RMS [arcseconds] 0.40
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2322 06 18
perihelion date 2014 08 20.06365595 ± 0.00328565
perihelion distance [au] 6.46272953 ± 0.00001085
eccentricity 0.99988752 ± 0.00000606
argument of perihelion [°] 75.863491 ± 0.000290
ascending node [°] 312.773192 ± 0.000031
inclination [°] 106.094098 ± 0.000008
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 17.40 ± 0.94
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2012k8ra.bpl
Upper panel: 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.
Middle panel(s): O-C diagram for a given solution (sometimes in comparison to another solution available in CODE), where residuals in right ascension are shown using magenta dots and in declination by blue open circles.
Lowest panel: Relative weights for a given data set(s).
Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of future swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.