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Bright comets in the coming 3 months

The below table lists all comets that are expected to become brighter than magnitude 15 in the coming 3 months.
For detailed information about a comet, click on its designation.

Comet(s) Today Perihelion Nearest approach
designation magn delta radius date magn radius date magn delta
C/2025 F2 (SWAN)disintegrated1.26 AU0.72 AU1 May 2025-0.33 AU1 May 2025-0.96 AU
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann12.56.37 AU6.28 AU2 May 201912.35.79 AU9 Sep 201811.64.80 AU
21P/Giacobini-Zinner13.02.27 AU1.32 AU25 Mar 202511.31.01 AU21 Mar 202511.32.00 AU
217P/LINEAR13.62.01 AU1.23 AU24 May 202513.61.23 AU2 Jan 202617.21.84 AU
C/2024 G3 (ATLAS)13.62.81 AU2.76 AU13 Jan 2025-4.10.09 AU13 Jan 2025-3.90.94 AU
C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)13.73.46 AU3.89 AU27 Sep 20243.10.39 AU12 Oct 20240.30.47 AU
C/2021 G2 (Atlas)13.84.40 AU5.36 AU9 Sep 202414.14.98 AU15 Apr 202413.54.24 AU
C/2022 E2 (ATLAS)14.55.03 AU4.30 AU14 Sep 202413.53.67 AU1 Dec 202412.92.99 AU
C/2022 N2 (PANSTARRS)15.24.68 AU3.87 AU31 Jul 202514.73.83 AU9 Nov 202514.32.95 AU
C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos)16.23.49 AU3.77 AU20 Jan 20265.90.57 AU17 Feb 20266.91.01 AU
47P/Ashbrook-Jackson16.42.87 AU2.95 AU27 Oct 202515.22.81 AU6 Sep 202514.91.82 AU


For each of the listed comets, the current position is plotted in the below all-sky chart: 





    Terminology:
            
    delta:      Distance between comet and earth in AU
    radius:     Distance between comet and sun in AU
    magn:       Magnitude (brightness) estimate    
    elong:      Elongation in degrees (angle sun-earth-comet)    
    AU:         Astronomical Unit (mean distance between earth and sun: 149597870.7 km
    Perihelion: On this date the comet (or other type of body) is closest to the sun

Orbital elements provided by MPC (Minor Planet Center).
Observations contributed by observers worldwide, via COBS (Comet Observation Database).
Calculations by a modified version of AAPlus, a C# implementation of the AA+ project by PJ Naughter from the algorithms presented in the book "Astronomical Algorithms" by Jean Meeus.
NGC2000 dso catalog and star labels from VizieR as provided by the Strasbourg astronomical Data Center.
Tycho2 catalog from the ESO archive.

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