Comet C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS)

Comet C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS) was discovered on May, 15^th, 2012 on the border of constellations Ophiuchus and Hercules as a very condensed, but slightly diffuse object of 18.5 mag. By late spring of 2013, a one year after discovery, comet attained 15 mag with coma diameter of 0.4'-0.5' (~ 100 thousand km). During the summer, C/2012 K1 continued brightening up (the first visual observations were made at this time, when the comet still was fainter than 14^m). By the end of September comet was not observed due to conjunction with the Sun.  Moving out of conjunction  in the late 2013 tailed wanderer was then at 13 mag.

Visual observations started actively in February 2014 when comet had brightened up to 12 mag, and the diameter of the coma was of about 1' (~ 165 thousand km). In early March (visual magnitude of 11-11.5^m and coma diameter reported visually of 2' or less) external gas coma first appeared on the images. Ion tail increasing rapidly, first reported at the end of the month. On April, 4^th, R. Ligustri (Italy) obtained an image of comet remotely from iTelescope observatory (USA) revealing perfectly visible clearly defined inner coma (2') and the outer gas coma, having a diameter of about 10' (~ 800 thousand km). There were well defined both dust and ion tails in addition. Images taken on April, 20-22, revealed inner coma of 2.5' size and the outer gas coma reached up to 15' (~ 1 million km). Also two well-defined tails were remarked: internal coma extension dust tail (length of a little over 10') and ion tail (45'). Visual magnitude of the comet during this period was of ~9.5^m, and the outer coma as well as an ion tail have not been distinguishable visually, while dust tail can be seen when observed using large telescopes.

During May, the comet continued to become more impressive. On May, 4^th, M. Jager obtained image of the comet with very faint external coma of 20' (the most condensed part had a diameter of 12'), ion tail has been observed to 2° arc. On May, 22^nd, coma could be traced up to 15', ion tail to 3° and the dust  tail to 19' (M. Jager). Within a month the comet brightened up from 9.3 mag to 8.4 mag, and the visual coma diameter increased from 4-6' to 7-9'.

Orbital elements:

Epoch 2014 May 23.0 TT = JDT 2456800.5
T 2014 Aug. 27.6520 TT                                  MPC
q   1.054505             (2000.0)            P               Q
z  -0.000174       Peri.  203.1098      -0.4714811      +0.7807351              T = 2456897.15204 JDT
 +/-0.000000       Node   317.7383      +0.8739394      +0.4758961              q =     1.0545047
e   1.000184       Incl.  142.4282      +0.1180487      -0.4049390

1/a(orig) = +0.000034 AU**-1, 1/a(fut) = +0.000121 AU**-1. No residual file available.