C/2002 L9 NEAT
more info
C/2002 L9 was discovered on 13 June 2002 by the NEAT as an apparently asteroidal object. Later, its cometary apperance was reported [IAUC 7931, 2002 July 2]. Later, a few pre-discovery detections by LINEAR were found.
This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 30 July 2003 (6.365 au), eight months before perihelion.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 4.6 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 8.23 au – 7.033 au (perihelion) – 9.48 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers slight planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system.
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska and Dybczyński 2017.

solution description
number of observations 323
data interval 2002 06 06 – 2007 01 11
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 8.23 au – 7.03 au (perihelion) – 9.48 au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion NG effects not determinable
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 634
RMS [arcseconds] 0.49
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2313 10 23
perihelion date 2004 04 06.79185600 ± 0.00076400
perihelion distance [au] 7.03670088 ± 0.00000604
eccentricity 0.99945273 ± 0.00000627
argument of perihelion [°] 231.480567 ± 0.000050
ascending node [°] 110.436611 ± 0.000011
inclination [°] 68.407644 ± 0.000011
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 77.77 ± 0.89
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2002l9a2.bpl
Time distribution of positional observations with corresponding heliocentric (red curve) and geocentric (green curve) distance at which they were taken. The horizontal dotted line shows the perihelion distance for a given comet whereas vertical dotted line — the moment of perihelion passage.
Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of future swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.