C/2015 O1 PANSTARRS
more info


Comet C/2015 O1 was discovered on 19 July 2015 with Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is about  months after its perihelion passage.

Some prediscovery images of this comet were found: taken on 15 and 17 of June 2015 by Space Surveillance Telescope (Atom Site).

Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 4.76 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 8.65 au – 3.730 au (perihelion) – 7.28 au.

NG orbits using full data-arc as well as independently using pre-perihelion and post-perihelion data are determinable.

See also Królikowska and Dones 2023.
solution description
number of observations 4142
data interval 2015 06 15 – 2020 03 20
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 8.65 au – 3.73 au (perihelion) – 7.28 au
type of model of motion NC - non-gravitational orbits for symmetric CO-g(r)-like function
data weighting YES
number of residuals 8242
RMS [arcseconds] 0.51
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (heliocentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2018 03 23
perihelion date 2018 02 19.03880331 ± 0.00011119
perihelion distance [au] 3.72964634 ± 0.00000081
eccentricity 0.99995278 ± 0.00000126
argument of perihelion [°] 89.596649 ± 0.000023
ascending node [°] 299.857476 ± 0.000004
inclination [°] 127.211023 ± 0.000003
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 12.66 ± 0.34
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).
non-gravitational parameters
A1 [10-8au/day2] 3.1996 ± 0.0249
A2 [10-8au/day2] -1.4174 ± 0.03508
A3 [10-8au/day2] 0.23513 ± 0.00717
m -2.00
n 3.000
k -2.6000
r0 [au] 10.000
α 0.0100