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 A6 (Lemmon)10.62.12 AU1.54 AU8 Nov 2025-2.20.53 AU21 Oct 2025-0.80.60 AU
C/2025 K1 (ATLAS)12.10.73 AU1.06 AU8 Oct 20259.90.33 AU24 Nov 202511.10.40 AU
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann12.97.30 AU6.29 AU30 Apr 201912.35.80 AU9 Sep 201811.64.80 AU
240P/NEAT14.31.90 AU2.30 AU19 Dec 202513.12.12 AU24 Nov 202512.91.16 AU
C/2022 N2 (PANSTARRS)14.43.53 AU3.83 AU31 Jul 202514.63.83 AU9 Nov 202514.12.95 AU
C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos)14.62.61 AU2.59 AU20 Jan 20268.70.57 AU17 Feb 20269.21.01 AU
C/2022 E2 (ATLAS)14.64.35 AU4.77 AU14 Sep 202413.53.67 AU1 Dec 202413.02.99 AU
C/2021 G2 (ATLAS)14.65.89 AU5.67 AU9 Sep 202414.04.98 AU15 Apr 202413.54.24 AU
217P/LINEAR15.02.24 AU1.70 AU24 May 202512.41.23 AU2 Jan 202617.81.84 AU
3I/ATLAS15.82.59 AU2.61 AU29 Oct 202513.81.36 AU19 Dec 202514.71.80 AU
88P/Howell17.13.26 AU2.39 AU18 Mar 202612.41.36 AU10 Oct 202615.51.50 AU
210P/Christensen17.20.68 AU1.59 AU22 Nov 20257.60.52 AU8 Nov 20257.80.43 AU
24P/Schaumasse20.51.95 AU2.00 AU8 Jan 20269.91.18 AU4 Jan 20269.90.59 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.