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Flare at Perihelion


Below is a chart going from 1 Apr. '96 to 1 May '97. I've tracked the 4 HB orbit elements give by the IAU, NASA, and twice recently by JPL as 4 separate comets so that the orbits can be compared. I've recently reposted, within the last couple days, the complete orbit element, so I won't do that again here. What I'm showing is that the orbits as given don't vary significantly during the months when HB is supposed to be passing by the giant planets, but at perihelion, when there are no giant planets about to perturb, oops, a flare develops!

My question is why the flare at that time. The explanation for adjustments to the posted orbit of HB were that perturbations or error corrections were being made. No explanation was ever given, and no evidence of perturbation in the orbits during this time - only at perihelion.

	IAU 11/95	NASA 2/22	JPL 5/28	JPL 6/27	Max Diff
4/1/96
RA 	19h42m46s	19h42m44s	19h42m44s	19h42m46s	00h00m02s
Dec (S)	19.35.13 	19.37.48	19.37.45	19.35.26	00.02.35

5/1/96
RA 	19h43m59s	19h43m56s	19h43m56s	19h43m59s	00h00m03s
Dec (S)	17.19.00	17.22.17	17.22.13	17.19.19	00.03.17

6/1/96
RA 	19h28m21s	19h28m19s	19h28m19s	19h28m21s	00h00m02s
Dec (S)	14.42.60	14.46.22	14.46.22	14.42.38	00.03.62

7/1/96
RA	18h54m17s	18h54m19s	18h54m19s	18h54m17s	00h00m02s
Dec (S)	11.50.36 	11.56.5 	1.55.54 	11.51.21	00.06.14

8/1/96
RA	18h10m14s	18h10m23s	18h10m23s	18h10m16s	00h00m09s
Dec (S)	8.50.32 	8.56.56 	8.56.38 	8.51.29 	00.06.24

9/1/96
RA	17h38m40s	17h38m53s	17h38m53s	17h38m42s	00h00m13s
Dec (S)	6.13.19 	6.37.49 	6.37.49 	6.32.28 	00.06.30

10/1/96
RA	17h29m39s	17h29m54s	17h29m53s	17h29m42s	00h00m15s
Dec (S)	4.57.58 	5.4.90 		5.3.58 		4.58.59 	00.07.32

11/1/96
RA	17h39m57s	17h40m11s	17h40m11s	17h40m00s	00h00m54s
Dec (S)	3.16.49 	3.23.14 	3.23.60 	3.18.40 	00.07.11

12/1/96
RA	18h4m25s	18h4m36s	18h4m36s	18h4m28s	00h00m11s
Dec (S)	0.32.56 	0.39.53 	0.39.43 	0.34.25 	00.06.97

1/1/97
RA	18h42m59s	18h43m2s	18h43m2s	18h43m0s	00h00m61s
Dec (N)	4.53.30 	4.44.15 	4.44.28 	4.51.10 	00.09.15

2/1/97
RA	19h41m26s	19h41m4s	19h41m4s	19h41m21s	00h00m15s
Dec (N)	15.41.31	15.28.90	15.28.27	15.38.15	00.13.04

3/1/97
RA	21h24m17s	21h22m17s	21h22m19s	21h23m50s	00h02m00s
Dec (N)	33.37.20	33.18.12	33.18.44	33.32.13	00.19.08

4/1/97
RA	1h51m27s	1h47m24s	1h47m30s	1h50m31s	00h04m03s
Dec (N)	44.21.49	44.42.52	44.42.28	44.26.50	00.21.03

5/1/97
RA	4h42m12s	4h41m18s	4h41m20s	4h41m59s	00h00m94s
Dec (N)	25.42.60	26.13.12	26.12.26	25.47.58	00.35.32