C/1993 K1 Shoemaker-Levy
more info
Few first positions of comet C/1993 K1 were measured by Brian A. Skiff and Carolyn S. Shoemaker from exposures taken by C. S. Shoemaker, Eugene M. Shoemaker and David H. Levy on 23 May 1993 (with the 0.46-m Schmidt telescope at Palomar; see IAUC 5808). At that moment the comet was more than eight months before its perihelion. Pre-discovery observations from 18 March were found much later by M. Meyer.
The comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 6 May 1993 (4.35 au), that was 2.5 weeks before discovery. Similar close approach to the Earth was in the next opposition when the comet was within 4.48 au from the Earth (on 12 May 1994, about 3.5 months after perihelion passage).
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 2.9 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 5.24 au – 4.85 au (perihelion) – 7.27 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers rather strong planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to notable more tight future orbit with semimajor axis shorter than 2000 au (see future barycentric orbit).
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska and Dybczyński 2017.

solution description
number of observations 44
data interval 1993 05 23 – 1996 01 27
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 5.24 au – 4.85 au (perihelion) – 7.27 au
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 86
RMS [arcseconds] 1.02
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1688 11 27
perihelion date 1994 01 31.66512900 ± 0.00396200
perihelion distance [au] 4.84471237 ± 0.00002505
eccentricity 0.99985892 ± 0.00003712
argument of perihelion [°] 232.436917 ± 0.000468
ascending node [°] 30.322178 ± 0.000103
inclination [°] 67.73539 ± 0.00007
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 29.12 ± 7.66
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
1993k1a1.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.