New comet on the Southern Hemisphere

Grzegorz Pojmanski, Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory reports:

Using the ASAS3V instrument of The All Sky Automated Survey
(telephoto lens 180/2.8, diameter 65mm + CCD + Johnsons V filter,
3 minute exposures, pixel size 14.8 arcsec, rms astrometric accuracy:
4 arcsec) ASAS has discovered an apparently cometary
object on images taken on January, 1, 2006.

Object cannot be located in MPC/CBAT pages.

Observations:

DATE UT HJD RA (2000) DEC V

29/12/2005 00:45:17 (Dec 29.032) 2453733.5285 21:50:29 -69:40.6 13.20
01/01/2006 01:03:11 (Jan 01.044) 2453736.5407 21:40:28 -68:36.5 12.46
04/01/2006 00:46:26 (Jan 04.033) 2453739.5290 21:31:33 -67:31.2 12.00
04/01/2006 00:53:46 (Jan 04.038) 2453739.5341 21:31:33 -67:31.1 11.99
05/01/2006 00:52:27 (Jan 05.037) 2453740.5332 21:28:45 -67:08.8 11.92

FWHM of the coma is 63 arcsec;
Diameter of the ASAS-detected coma (largest contour) is 2 arcmin.

Images of the comet can be inspected on the WWW following the links:

http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~gp/asas/asas.html -> Alert Service Page -> Comets

or directly on new comet's page:

http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~gp/asas/asas_c2006.html

Regards, Grzegorz Pojmanski