Objects in your sky: Comets
2P/Encke
1980 Oct 27 perihelion[chart]
1984 Feb 16 perihelion[chart]
1987 Jun 08 perihelion[chart]
1990 Sep 28 perihelion[chart]
1994 Jan 17 perihelion[chart]
1997 May 09 perihelion[chart]
2000 Aug 29 perihelion[chart]
2003 Dec 20 perihelion[chart]
2007 Apr 10 perihelion[chart]
2010 Jul 31 perihelion[chart]
2013 Nov 20 perihelion[chart]
2017 Mar 12 perihelion[chart]
2020 Jul 01 perihelion[chart]
2023 Oct 22 perihelion[chart]
2027 Feb 11 perihelion[chart]
8P/Tuttle
1980 Oct 16 perihelion[chart]
1994 May 31 perihelion[chart]
2008 Jan 13 perihelion[chart]
2021 Aug 27 perihelion[chart]
10P/Tempel
1983 Sep 23 perihelion[chart]
1994 Jun 10 perihelion[chart]
2010 Jul 06 perihelion[chart]
2021 Mar 24 perihelion[chart]
2026 Aug 01 perihelion[chart]
15P/Finlay
1982 Feb 07 perihelion[chart]
1988 Sep 03 perihelion[chart]
1995 Mar 31 perihelion[chart]
2001 Oct 26 perihelion[chart]
2008 May 22 perihelion[chart]
2014 Dec 17 perihelion[chart]
2021 Jul 13 perihelion[chart]
2028 Feb 07 perihelion[chart]
19P/Borrelly
1980 Dec 29 perihelion[chart]
1987 Nov 05 perihelion[chart]
1994 Sep 10 perihelion[chart]
2015 Mar 29 perihelion[chart]
2022 Feb 01 perihelion[chart]
2028 Dec 08 perihelion[chart]
21P/Giacobini-Zinner
1992 Jul 25 perihelion[chart]
2005 Aug 18 perihelion[chart]
2018 Sep 12 perihelion[chart]
2025 Mar 25 perihelion[chart]
22P/Kopff
1990 Apr 17 perihelion[chart]
1996 Sep 04 perihelion[chart]
2009 Jun 11 perihelion[chart]
2022 Mar 18 perihelion[chart]
2028 Aug 04 perihelion[chart]
45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova
1984 Dec 05 perihelion[chart]
1990 Apr 09 perihelion[chart]
1995 Aug 12 perihelion[chart]
2000 Dec 14 perihelion[chart]
2006 Apr 18 perihelion[chart]
2011 Aug 21 perihelion[chart]
2016 Dec 23 perihelion[chart]
2022 Apr 26 perihelion[chart]
2027 Aug 29 perihelion[chart]
46P/Wirtanen
1980 Nov 22 perihelion[chart]
1991 Oct 07 perihelion[chart]
1997 Mar 14 perihelion[chart]
2008 Jan 27 perihelion[chart]
2018 Dec 12 perihelion[chart]
2024 May 19 perihelion[chart]
2029 Oct 26 perihelion[chart]
58P/Jackson-Neujmin
1995 Aug 10 perihelion[chart]
2003 Nov 15 perihelion[chart]
2020 May 27 perihelion[chart]
2028 Sep 02 perihelion[chart]
62P/Tsuchinshan
1986 Nov 13 perihelion[chart]
1993 Jan 19 perihelion[chart]
1999 Mar 28 perihelion[chart]
2023 Dec 25 perihelion[chart]
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann
1984 Jul 25 perihelion[chart]
1995 Jun 12 perihelion[chart]
2022 Aug 25 perihelion[chart]
2028 Feb 03 perihelion[chart]
81P/Wild
1997 Apr 10 perihelion[chart]
2010 Feb 11 perihelion[chart]
2022 Dec 15 perihelion[chart]
2029 May 17 perihelion[chart]
88P/Howell
1982 Jun 01 perihelion[chart]
1987 Nov 21 perihelion[chart]
1993 May 13 perihelion[chart]
1998 Nov 02 perihelion[chart]
2004 Apr 24 perihelion[chart]
2009 Oct 14 perihelion[chart]
2015 Apr 06 perihelion[chart]
2020 Sep 26 perihelion[chart]
2026 Mar 18 perihelion[chart]
96P/Machholz
1980 Nov 15 perihelion[chart]
1986 Feb 24 perihelion[chart]
1991 Jun 05 perihelion[chart]
1996 Sep 13 perihelion[chart]
2001 Dec 23 perihelion[chart]
2007 Apr 03 perihelion[chart]
2012 Jul 12 perihelion[chart]
2017 Oct 22 perihelion[chart]
2023 Jan 31 perihelion[chart]
2028 May 11 perihelion[chart]
104P/Kowal
1981 Oct 20 perihelion[chart]
1999 Jan 16 perihelion[chart]
2004 Oct 15 perihelion[chart]
2022 Jan 11 perihelion[chart]
2027 Oct 11 perihelion[chart]
141P/Machholz
1988 Nov 17 perihelion[chart]
2004 Dec 02 perihelion[chart]
2020 Dec 16 perihelion[chart]
2026 Apr 22 perihelion[chart]
154P/Brewington
1992 Dec 02 perihelion[chart]
2013 Dec 08 perihelion[chart]
2024 Jun 11 perihelion[chart]
The position of each comet is calculated from orbital elements published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC).
The brightnesses of comets are estimated from magnitude parameters published by the BAA Comet Section, where these are available. These are computed from the observations they receive from amateur astronomers.
Comets are intrinsically highly unpredictable objects, since their brightness depends on the scattering of sunlight from dust particles in the comet's coma and tail. This dust is continually streaming away from the comet's nucleus, and its density at any particular time is governed by the rate of sublimation of the ice in the comet's nucleus, as it is heated by the Sun's rays. It also depends on the amount of dust that is mixed in with that ice. This is very difficult to predict in advance, and can be highly variable even between successive apparitions of the same comet.
In consequence, while the future positions of comets are usually known with a high degree of confidence, their future brightnesses are not. For most comets, we do not publish any magnitude estimates at all. For the few comets where we do make estimates, we generally prefer the BAA's magnitude parameters to those published by the Minor Planet Center, since they are typically updated more often.