C/2012 K8 Lemmon
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Comet C/2012 K8 was discovered on 30 May 2012 with Mount Lemmon survey, that is about 2.2 years before its perihelion passage. It was observed during five oppositions until 8 June 2016.

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 21 June 2014 (6.120 au), about 2 months before perihelion passage.

Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 4.02 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 8.40 au – 6.463 au (perihelion) – 7.81 au.

This Oort spike comet suffers very tiny planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system and in the next perihelion passage it will be an Oort spike comet.

See also Królikowska and Dones 2023.

solution description
number of observations 668
data interval 2012 05 30 – 2014 08 17
data arc selection data generally limited to pre-perihelion (PRE)
range of heliocentric distances 8.4 au – 6.46au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion NG effects not determinable
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 1288
RMS [arcseconds] 0.43
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1706 07 17
perihelion date 2014 08 19.69109400 ± 0.00106295
perihelion distance [au] 6.45940790 ± 0.00000554
eccentricity 0.99974023 ± 0.00000443
argument of perihelion [°] 75.928073 ± 0.000089
ascending node [°] 312.764353 ± 0.000011
inclination [°] 106.10197 ± 0.000009
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 40.22 ± 0.69
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2012k8pa.bmi
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).
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.