Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin

Minor Planet Center Orbital Elements
4 August, 1995

T = 	1995 Apr. 1.6416

e = 0.994441

q = 0.913023

w = 130.6678

lan = 282.4729

I = 89.4142

NASA

Minor Planet Center Orbital Elements for Comet Hale-Bopp (1995-01)
22 February, 1996

Corrected Elements (J2000):	Solution 22

Epoch 2450520.50000 = 1997 Mar 13.00000

EC .995028866

QR .914124471

TP 2450539.66868 1997 Apr 1.16868

OM 282.47106

W 130.59479

IN 89.42762

• The following (J2000) osculating orbital elements can be used to generate ephemeris data using two body programs. However, care must be taken to select an orbital element set with an epoch close to the desired ephemeris output times.

Epoch (TDB)	e          q        w          Node       i  

1996 Mar 1.0 .9973992 .9185010 282.46339 130.31826 89.13023

1996 May 20.0 .9961948 .9161636 282.47280 130.46100 89.42305

1996 Jul 16.0 .9954995 .9148930 282.47405 130.54139 89.43599

1996 Oct 10.0 .9951417 .9142952 282.47264 130.58136 89.43029

1997 Mar 20.0 .9950313 .9141244 282.47109 130.59480 89.42761

1997 Sep 6.0 .9950212 .9140686 282.47031 130.59111 89.42659

e: Eccentricity

q: Perihelion passage distance (AU)

w: Argument of perihelion (deg.)

Node: Longitude of the ascending node (deg.)

I: Inclination (deg.)