COMET 2005 T4 (SWAN) - PHOTOS AND OBSERVATIONS. Possum Observatory

Cmet 2005 T4 (SWAN) is a newly discovered comet (as at late October 2005) in the western sky. I tried to visually observe it but did not definately see it. My observation states:

'New Comet SWAN (C/2005 T4) was not definately seen visually. It's very low in the western sky <8* above the horizon. Can see stars to mag 13.5. Interestly I THOUGHT at times I could detect a FAINT smudge about 4' to the NW of mag 10.5 star TYC 563143 but dismissed it due to it being in a different location than the predicted one (on GUIDE using the IAU ephemerides) - it was that faint and vague I thought it was just my eyes/mind playing tricks on me). However exposures show the smudges location to be the comet! Based on these images as at 25.36 October (UT) I get a position of RA 16h 33m 05s, Dec 09h 55m 57s. I guess the m1 visual mag was ~12.0 - 13.0. Imaged T4 when it was only 3* altitude in the west. Stellar VLM = 13.5 (scope).'

The following was extracted from GUIDE 8.0 software...

SWAN (C/2005 T4) mag 14.5
Perihelion distance 0.6225900 AU
Orbital elements:
Eccentricity 1.0000000
Inclination of orbit 160.4020000 degrees
Argument of perihelion 34.0360000 degrees
Long. ascending node 28.7840000 degrees
Date of perihelion JD 2453646.45100 ( 2 Oct 2005 22:49:26)
Dist from home planet: 1.27850491 AU (191,261,613 km)
Heliocentric position: lon 300.78480 lat 19.58696
Heliocentric radius 0.78478 AU
81.44% illuminated
Phase angle: 51.04 degrees
Elongation from Sun 37.86 degrees (evening sky)
Speed of apparent motion: 1.023'/hour at position angle 118.5
Motion is -0.36 degrees/day in RA, -0.19 degrees/day in dec

The following are some images I took of it with a Canon EOS 10D digital SLR. Observations and daily ephemerides lower down.

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW...	DETAILS:	..
	Date (UT): Scope: Camera: Exposures and ISO: NOTES:	Tuesday 25.36 October 2005 (UT) 41cm (16") f5.2 Meade Newtonian Canon EOS 10D digital SLR 10 x 1 minute @ 800/3200 ASA Comet is about mag 12-13

My observations of this comet...