An asteroidal object of 19m detected by LINEAR on Sep. 10, 2001 in the constellation Aries was identified as cometary at closer inspection. The first hint of its cometary nature came from its comet-like orbit. Observations in mid-October then showed a 6-13" small coma of R=16.7m and some hints of a tail. Comet C/2001 RX14 (LINEAR) passed perihelion in mid-January 2003. Assuming an average evolution it should have reached a maximum brightness of 10m in January of that year.
Until beginning of June 2003 only 45 observations by 9 members of the German Comet Section were received. For the following analysis 285 international observations were included.
The brightness evolution can be described only moderately well by a standard formula. The reason for this is the rather large scatter within the estimates contrasting with the rather small variance in solar distance (especially after perihelion). The following formula is an acceptable fit:
The above formulae give a maximum brightness of 10.7m in February 2003.
Total Brightness and Coma diameter
The apparent coma diameter measured 1.3' at the beginning of the apparition, increasing to 1.8' at the end of 2002 and reaching a broad maximum of 2.5' in March 2003. Since then it has decreased slightly. The absolute coma diameter was rather constant at about 150.000 km, with a hint to a slight decrease around the time of perihelion passage. The degree of condensation increased from DC 3 to DC 5-6 around perihelion, thereafter decreasing to DC 2-3 at the beginning of May.
Visual tail sightings were first reported in October 2002. However, the majority of tail estimates (reaching 0.1° = 1 Mill. km at most) were reported from mid-November 2002 to mid-March 2003, indicating that it pointed towards NW to W. Photographs and CCD-exposures show a strongly curved, broad dust tail.
Andreas Kammerer
