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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