New Bright Comet: "2010 V1"

IAUC nr.9175, issued on 2010, Nov. 03, announces the visual discovery of a new bright comet by two Japanese amateur astronomers, Kaoru Ikeya and Shigeki Murakami. The new comet has been designated "2010 V1". The orbit is still not available, it will be ready when more astrometric observations will be available.

This is the second visual comet discovery of 2010, after the discovery in March of comet C/2010 F4 by Don Machholz.

We performed some follow-up measurements of this object few hours ago, on 2010 Nov. 04.5, remotely from the GRAS Observatory (near Mayhill, NM) through a 0.25-m, f/3.4 reflector + CCD. Our stackings shows a coma diameter of nearly 2 arcminutes, elongated toward PA 295 and a strong central condensation.

This comet is currently at a solar elongation of only 32 degree with a ccd magnitude around 12 and a visual magnitude around 8.

Congratulations to Ikeya and Murakami for this discovery!!

by Ernesto Guido & Giovanni Sostero