Comets Currently Visible: P/1998 QP54 (LONEOS-Tucker)

IAU Circular 7012 (Sept. 14, 1998) reports a rather confusing tale of the discovery of comet. On Sept. 13 Roy A. Tucker (Tucson, AZ) reported his discovery of a comet in the course of his CCD asteroid-astrometry program. This comet was identified as asteroid 1998 QP54 by G. V. Williams, Minor Planet Center. It had been reported by E. Bowell (observer W. D. Ferris, measurer B. W. Koehn) as a minor planet discovered in the course of LONEOS, the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search, LINEAR also made an observation a day after LONEOS.

The comet is of short period. It made a close approach to Jupiter in early 1992. The comet is currently about m1=14.3. It is expected to fade slowly. The comet is currently visible from both hemispheres, with northern hemisphere observers slightly favored.