C/1976 U1 Lovas
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Comet C/1976 U1 was discovered on 27 October 1976, 3.7 months after its perihelion passage, and was last seen on 10 February 1978 [Kronk and Meyer, Cometography: Volume 5].
This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 1 January 1977 (5.33 au), about 2 months after its discovery.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 1.22 yr in a range of heliocentric distances from 5.94 au to 7.14 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to a more tight future orbit (see future barycentric orbit).
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska and Dybczyński 2017.

solution description
number of observations 30
data interval 1976 11 22 – 1978 02 10
data type observed only after perihelion (POST)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 5.94 au – 7.14au
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 60
RMS [arcseconds] 1.69
orbit quality class 1b
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2285 06 11
perihelion date 1976 07 07.80035300 ± 0.03600400
perihelion distance [au] 5.85826685 ± 0.00014138
eccentricity 0.99884526 ± 0.00012806
argument of perihelion [°] 118.887188 ± 0.003900
ascending node [°] 286.007941 ± 0.000292
inclination [°] 86.681367 ± 0.000352
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 197.11 ± 21.86
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
1976u1a1.bpl
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 future swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.