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Comet C/2014 UN_271 (BERNARDINELLI-BERNSTEIN)

Photometric data obtained from FOCAS-II software

COD B96

CON BRIXIIS Observatory - Eyckensbeekstraat 2, B-9150 Kruibeke, Belgium

CATALOG: USNO A2.0 / CMC-14 - BAND: R

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COMET         UTC                    +/-    +/-    +/-    +/-    +/-    +/-     N  FWHM  CAT

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                                                                     AFRHO         LOG

COMET         UTC                   DELTA    r    BOX "   MAG   RSR    CM    +/-  AFRHO  OBS

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Af(rho) data acoording the CARA-approach is available via request to CARA-coordinator

http://cara.uai.it

Discovery: ( CBET 4989: COMET C/2014 UN_271 )

Further to CBET 4983, this object discovered by Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein has been found to show cometary appearance in new CCD images.

L. Buzzi writes that forty-five stacked 90-s exposures taken on 2021 June 22 by L. Demetz and himself remotely using a 0.51-m f/6.7 astrograph of the Skygems Telescope Network in Namibia in 3" seeing and good transparency (and measured by A. Aletti and Buzzi) show a condensed coma 15" in size. T. Lister imaged the comet with a 1-m telescope of the Las Cumbres Observatory at Sutherland, South Africa, on 2021 June 22.2 UT that shows a condensed, slightly asymmetric coma of size 7".8 and mag 19.6-19.9, with the asymmetry toward p.a. about 40 deg. Next perihelion expected on 23 January 2031.

C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), or simply 2014 UN271, is a large Oort cloud comet discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey. When first imaged in October 2014, the object was 29 AU (4.3 billion km) from the Sun and almost as far as Neptune's orbit. As of 2021, it is currently approaching the Sun at a distance of 20.2 AU (3.0 billion km) and will reach its perihelion of 10.9 AU (just outside of Saturn's orbit) in January 2031.

C/2014 UN271's absolute magnitude of 7.8 suggests the body could be around 100 km in diameter. However, if cometary activity was present at the time of the original observations, it could be significantly smaller.