C/2013 V4 Catalina
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Comet C/2013 V4 was discovered on 9 November 2013 with Catalina Sky Survey, that is less than one year before its perihelion passage. Next, it was found on earlier images taken on 23 October 2013 with the Pan-STARRS 1, Haleakala, and 31 October 2013 with Catalina Sky Survey. This comet was observed until 6 August 2018.

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 1 December 2015 (4.535 au), less than 2 months after its perihelion passage.

Solutions given here is based on data spanning over 4.79 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 7.35 au – 5.185 au (perihelion) – 8.99 au.

NG orbit using full data-arc is determinable.

This Oort spike comet suffers slight planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; these perturbations lead to a more tight future orbit (see future barycentric orbits).

See also Królikowska and Dones 2023.
solution description
number of observations 2454
data interval 2013 10 23 – 2018 08 06
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 7.35 au – 5.18 au (perihelion) – 8.99 au
type of model of motion NC - non-gravitational orbits for symmetric CO-g(r)-like function
data weighting YES
number of residuals 4865
RMS [arcseconds] 0.45
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2323 02 13
perihelion date 2015 10 07.13705700 ± 0.00093076
perihelion distance [au] 5.18465994 ± 0.00000578
eccentricity 0.99915172 ± 0.00000462
argument of perihelion [°] 40.384987 ± 0.000102
ascending node [°] 55.575053 ± 0.000003
inclination [°] 67.87388 ± 0.000005
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 163.61 ± 0.89
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2013v4c5.bpl
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 future swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.