C/1973 W1 Gibson
more info
Comet C/1973 W1 was discovered on 24 November 1973, about 3.5 months after perihelion passage, and was last seen on 11 October 1974 [Kronk and Meyer, Cometography: Volume 5]
The comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 19 October 1973 (3.372 au), 1.2 month before discovery.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 0.86 yr in a range of heliocentric distances from 3.97 au to 5.29 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to escape the comet from the planetary zone on a hyperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbit).
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska and Dybczyński 2017.

solution description
number of observations 22
data interval 1973 11 30 – 1974 10 11
data type observed only after perihelion (POST)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 3.97 au – 5.29au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion NG effects not determinable
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting NO
number of residuals 43
RMS [arcseconds] 0.72
orbit quality class 1b
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1669 08 19
perihelion date 1973 08 10.05502300 ± 0.00666500
perihelion distance [au] 3.84026288 ± 0.00008612
eccentricity 0.99972033 ± 0.00004727
argument of perihelion [°] 221.390019 ± 0.002037
ascending node [°] 244.629964 ± 0.000278
inclination [°] 108.04993 ± 0.000094
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 72.83 ± 12.31
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
1973w1a1.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.