C/2003 T3 Tabur
more info
Comet C/2003 T3 was discovered on 14 October 2003 by Vello Tabur (Australian Capital Territory); that is 6.5 months before its perihelion passage. It was observed until 3 May 2005.
Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 22 May 2004 (2.319 au), about 3 weeks after its perihelion passage.
Preferred solution given here is based on data spanning over 1.55 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 2.968 au – 1.481 au (perihelion) – 4.63 au, however NG solution based on pre-perihelion data (pn) is also adequate for past calculations.
This Oort spike comet suffers large planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; these perturbations lead to a significantly more tight future orbit with semimajor axis of about 1,400 au.
See also Królikowska 2020.

solution description
number of observations 769
data interval 2003 10 14 – 2005 05 03
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 2.96 au – 1.48 au (perihelion) – 4.63 au
type of model of motion NS - non-gravitational orbits for standard g(r)
data weighting YES
number of residuals 1522
RMS [arcseconds] 0.57
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (heliocentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2004 04 25
perihelion date 2004 04 29.00244481 ± 0.00005087
perihelion distance [au] 1.48108120 ± 0.00000105
eccentricity 0.99982916 ± 0.00000524
argument of perihelion [°] 43.773603 ± 0.000026
ascending node [°] 347.058149 ± 0.000023
inclination [°] 50.444429 ± 0.000018
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 115.35 ± 3.54
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] -1.0194 ± 0.104
A2 [10-8au/day2] -0.33506 ± 0.07923
A3 [10-8au/day2] 0.24663 ± 0.01918
m -2.15
n 5.093
k -4.6142
r0 [au] 2.808
α 0.1113