Printable finder charts for 46P/Wirtanen
| Color schemes | |||||
| Date span | Estimated date when brightest | Date of perigee | Date of perihelion | Dark on light | Light on dark |
| Aug 1980 – Feb 1981 | 17 Nov | 12 Nov | 25 Nov | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
| Jul 1991 – Jan 1992 | 6 Oct | 22 Sep | 9 Oct | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
| Dec 1996 – Jun 1997 | 17 Mar | 7 Sep | 16 Mar | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
| Nov 2007 – May 2008 | 1 Feb | 8 Oct | 28 Jan | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
| Sep 2018 – Mar 2019 | 14 Dec | 14 Dec | 12 Dec | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
| Feb 2024 – Aug 2024 | 18 May | 21 May | 19 May | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
| Jul 2029 – Jan 2030 | 20 Oct | 7 Oct | 25 Oct | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG | PNGPDF-RGBPDF-CMYKSVG |
Credits
The charts above were generated using StarCharter, a command-line tool for producing vector-graphics charts of the night sky, written by the author and freely available for download.
The paths of the planets are taken from the DE430 planetary ephemeris computed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Planetary positions were extracted from the DE430 files using EphemerisCompute, which was also written by the author, and is also freely available for download.
The positions of asteroids are calculated from orbital elements published by Ted Bowell of the Lowell Observatory. Comet positions are computed from orbital elements published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC).
Star positions and magnitudes were taken from the Hipparcos, Tycho, Tycho-2 and Gaia EDR3 catalogs.