C/2012 S4 PANSTARRS
more info
Comet C/2012 S4 was discovered on 28 September 2012 with Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is nine months before its perihelion passage. It was observed during two oppositions until 1 January 2014.
Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 15 September 2013 (3.396 au), about 2.5 months after perihelion passage.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 1.26 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 4.89 au – 4.349 au (perihelion) – 4.61 au.
This comet suffers small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; have orignal semimajor axis shorter than 10000 au and more tight future orbit.

solution description
number of observations 937
data interval 2012 09 28 – 2014 01 01
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 4.89 au – 4.35 au (perihelion) – 4.61 au
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 1842
RMS [arcseconds] 0.47
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2321 09 11
perihelion date 2013 06 27.51022618 ± 0.00053284
perihelion distance [au] 4.34788150 ± 0.00000212
eccentricity 0.99846330 ± 0.00000293
argument of perihelion [°] 163.507036 ± 0.000078
ascending node [°] 173.087207 ± 0.000007
inclination [°] 126.532672 ± 0.000009
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 353.44 ± 0.67
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2012s4a5.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.