Comet 81P/Wild will make its closest approach to the Sun on 20 April, at a distance of 1.60 AU.
From Fairfield on the day of perihelion it will become visible at around 20:50 (EST), 66° above your southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 03:46.
The events that comprise the 1997 apparition of 81P/Wild are as follows:
| Date | Event |
| 20 Apr 1997 | Comet 81P/Wild passes perihelion |
The table below lists the times when 81P/Wild will be visible from Fairfield day-by-day through its apparition:
| Date | Constellation | Comet visibility |
| 30 Mar 1997 | Cancer | Visible from 19:23 until 01:38 Highest at 20:28, 68° above S horizon |
| 01 Apr 1997 | Cancer | Visible from 19:26 until 01:32 Highest at 20:23, 68° above S horizon |
| 03 Apr 1997 | Cancer | Visible from 19:28 until 01:26 Highest at 20:17, 68° above S horizon |
| 05 Apr 1997 | Cancer | Visible from 19:30 until 01:21 Highest at 20:12, 68° above S horizon |
| 07 Apr 1997 | Cancer | Visible from 20:33 until 02:15 Highest at 21:07, 68° above S horizon |
| 09 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:35 until 02:09 Highest at 21:02, 68° above S horizon |
| 11 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:38 until 02:04 Highest at 20:57, 68° above S horizon |
| 13 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:41 until 01:59 Highest at 20:52, 67° above S horizon |
| 15 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:43 until 01:53 Highest at 20:47, 67° above S horizon |
| 17 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:46 until 01:48 Highest at 20:46, 67° above S horizon |
| 19 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:48 until 01:43 Highest at 20:48, 67° above S horizon |
| 21 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:51 until 01:38 Highest at 20:51, 66° above S horizon |
| 23 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:54 until 01:33 Highest at 20:54, 66° above S horizon |
| 25 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:56 until 01:28 Highest at 20:56, 65° above S horizon |
| 27 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 20:59 until 01:23 Highest at 20:59, 64° above S horizon |
| 29 Apr 1997 | Leo | Visible from 21:02 until 01:18 Highest at 21:02, 64° above SW horizon |
| 01 May 1997 | Leo | Visible from 21:04 until 01:13 Highest at 21:04, 63° above SW horizon |
| 03 May 1997 | Leo | Visible from 21:07 until 01:08 Highest at 21:07, 62° above SW horizon |
| 05 May 1997 | Leo | Visible from 21:10 until 01:03 Highest at 21:10, 61° above SW horizon |
| 07 May 1997 | Leo | Visible from 21:13 until 00:58 Highest at 21:13, 60° above SW horizon |
| 09 May 1997 | Leo | Visible from 21:15 until 00:53 Highest at 21:15, 59° above SW horizon |
A more detailed table of 81P/Wild's position on each night is available here. A diagram of the orbit of 81P/Wild is available here.
Finder chart
The chart below shows the path of 81P/Wild over the course of its apparition, as calculated from the orbital elements published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC). It is available for download, either on dark background, in PNG, PDF or SVG formats, or on a light background, in PNG, PDF or SVG formats. It was produced using StarCharter.
Comet brightnesses
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.
No estimate for the brightness of comet 81P/Wild is currently available.
The comet's position at perihelion will be:
The coordinates are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 13 Dec 2024
| The sky on 13 December 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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99% 12 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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Source
This event was automatically generated on the basis of orbital elements published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) , and is updated whenever new elements become available. It was last updated on 10 Dec 2024.
Image credit
© Andy Roberts 1997. Pictured comet is C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp.