C/1978 R3 (Machholz)

C/1978 R3 (Machholz)
	C/1978 R3 (Machholz) taken by Hans-Emil Schuster from ESO on 14 September 1978
Discovery
Discovered by	Donald Machholz
Discovery site	Los Gatos, California
Discovery date	13 September 1978
Designations
Alternative designations	1978 XIII, 1978l
Orbital characteristics
Epoch	2 November 1978 (JD 2443814.5)
Observation arc	322 days
Number of; observations	46
Perihelion	1.772 AU
Eccentricity	1.00028
Inclination	130.64°
Longitude of; ascending node	290.68°
Argument of; periapsis	224.75°
Mean anomaly	0.0002°
Last perihelion	13 August 1978
Earth MOID	0.942 AU
Jupiter MOID	1.672 AU
Comet total; magnitude (M1)	8.3

Comet Machholz, formally designated as C/1978 R3, is a hyperbolic comet that was observed throughout late 1978. It is the first of 12 comets discovered by American astronomer, Donald Machholz.^[6] He found the comet on 12 September 1978 while observing with a 25-cm reflector telescope from Los Gatos, California. He described it as a diffuse object without central condensation with an apparent magnitude of about 11.^[6] The first parabolic orbit, calculated by M. P. Candy, indicated that at the moment of discovery the comet was past its perihelion and it was approaching Earth.^[7]