2009E1/＜板垣 彗星＞(2009)

＊　Discovery　＊ Discovery Koichi Itagaki (Takanezawa Observatory, Tochigi, Japan) discovered this comet on 2009 March 14.42. He was using a 21-cm reflector and a CCD camera. He gave the magnitude as 12.8. The comet was found using software written by H. Kaneda (Sapporo, Japan) to automatically detect moving objects. The first confirmation was made by R. Holmes (Astronomical Research Observatory, Charleston, Illinois, USA) on March 15.03, using a 61-cm reflector and CCD camera. He gave the magnitude of the condensation as 16.6. A second confirmation was obtained by E. Guido, G. Sostero, and P. Camilleri of Remanzacco Observatory (Italy) on March 15.1; however, noting the comet's position was too low in the sky to be imaged from their observatory, they accessed a telescope on the GRAS network in Mayhill, New Mexico (USA) and obtained the first image listed under "Additional Images" below. Their image revealed a central condensation of about magnitude 14.6, "a bright inner coma, having a diameter of about 1.4 arcmin, and faint external halo nearly 4 arcmin in diameter, slightly elongated toward South-West." They estimated the total magnitude as 11.0.

−−G A R Y W. K R O N K ' S C O M E T O G R A P H Y　http://cometography.com/lcomets/2009e1.html −−