This comet was discovered on February 1. 2002 by Kaoru Ikeya of Japan and Daqing Zhang of China.

According to orbital calculations, this comet may not be new to our skies. The comet shares a similar orbit with one named C/1661 C1, which appeared 341 years ago in 1661, and it is likely that the comets are one and the same. If so, this would be the first long-period comet (a long-period comet has a period of over 200 years) to be identified as making a subsequent trip in to the sun.

March 16. 2002 - Image is taken at 18:26 UTC, refractor Celestron 102mm f/5 and 6x20 sec. exp. on Pixcel 237 CCD.
Field of view is 32x25 arc minutes, North is right.