The formats are described below. Minor planet numbers and provisional designations are official designations assigned by the Minor Planet Center. In practice, temporary designations on comet observations will be very rare. If there is no number these columns should be blank. The provisional designation is stored in a 7-character packed form .
Temporary designations are designations assigned by the observer for new or unidentified objects.
Such designations should begin in column 6, should not exceed 6 characters in length, and should start with one or more letters. It is important that every observation has a designation and that the same designation is used for all observations of the same object. Only one asterisked observation per object is expected. Reference should be made to the editorial notices on MPC 23803-23804 and 24421 for more complete details of the circumstances under which numbers are assigned. See the complete list of periodic comet numbers .