C/2006 L2 McNaught
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Comet C/2006 L2 was discovered on 14 June 2006 by Robert H. McNaught (Siding Spring Survey); that is about 5 months before its perihelion passage. It was observed until 7 July 2007 (see picture).
Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on the day of its discovery (1.870 au).
Here, two solutions based on entire data set (a6 and n5) are very similar quality, and in Królikowska and Dybczyński 2013 we recomended pure GR solution for past and future orbital evolution. Both these solutions are based on data spanning over 1.06 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 2.74 au – 1.994 au (perihelion) – 3.31 au. Here, we chose the NG solution as preferred;see Królikowska 2020.
This Oort spike comet suffers small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; these perturbations lead to escape the comet from the planetary zone on a hyperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbits).

solution description
number of observations 406
data interval 2006 06 14 – 2007 07 07
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 2.74 au – 1.99 au (perihelion) – 3.31 au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion comet with determinable NG~orbit
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 794
RMS [arcseconds] 0.49
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2305 09 15
perihelion date 2006 11 19.94026256 ± 0.00012548
perihelion distance [au] 1.99185210 ± 0.00000070
eccentricity 1.00018974 ± 0.00000284
argument of perihelion [°] 47.969720 ± 0.000042
ascending node [°] 239.288007 ± 0.000013
inclination [°] 101.012257 ± 0.000023
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] -95.26 ± 1.42
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2006l2a5.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.