© Andy Roberts 1997. Pictured comet is C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp.

Comet 8P/Tuttle passes perihelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Comets feed

Objects: 8P/Tuttle
Please wait
Loading 0/4
Click and drag to rotate
Mouse wheel to zoom in/out
Touch with mouse to dismiss
The sky at

Comet 8P/Tuttle will make its closest approach to the Sun on 12 January, at a distance of 1.02 AU.

From Fairfield on the day of perihelion it will not be observable because it will lie so far south that it never rises above the horizon.

Begin typing the name of a town near to you, and then select the town from the list of options which appear below.

The events that comprise the 2007–2008 apparition of 8P/Tuttle are as follows:

Date Event
23 Dec 2007Comet 8P/Tuttle reaches peak brightness
23 Dec 2007Comet 8P/Tuttle passes perigee
12 Jan 2008Comet 8P/Tuttle passes perihelion

The table below lists the times when 8P/Tuttle will be visible from Fairfield day-by-day through its apparition:

Date Constellation Comet visibility
22 Dec 2007GeminiVisible from 18:20 until 06:35
Highest at 00:27, 68° above S horizon
24 Dec 2007OrionVisible from 19:01 until 04:37
Highest at 23:49, 46° above S horizon
26 Dec 2007LepusVisible from 20:07 until 02:28
Highest at 23:18, 26° above S horizon
28 Dec 2007ColumbaNot observable
30 Dec 2007PictorNot observable
01 Jan 2008PictorNot observable
03 Jan 2008DoradoNot observable
05 Jan 2008DoradoNot observable
07 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
09 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
11 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
13 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
15 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
17 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
19 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
21 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
23 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
25 Jan 2008ReticulumNot observable
27 Jan 2008HydrusNot observable
29 Jan 2008HydrusNot observable
31 Jan 2008HydrusNot observable

A more detailed table of 8P/Tuttle's position on each night is available here. A diagram of the orbit of 8P/Tuttle is available here.

Finder chart

The chart below shows the path of 8P/Tuttle 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 8P/Tuttle is currently available.

The comet's position at perihelion will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude
Comet 8P/Tuttle 03h55m00s 64°04'S Reticulum 5.6

The coordinates are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 11 Dec 2024

The sky on 11 December 2024
Sunrise
07:06
Sunset
16:23
Twilight ends
18:03
Twilight begins
05:26

10-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

89%

10 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:01 10:54 15:48
Venus 10:16 14:59 19:43
Moon 13:36 20:36 03:51
Mars 19:41 03:06 10:31
Jupiter 15:58 23:24 06:50
Saturn 11:55 17:28 23:01
All times shown in EST.

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.

Share

Fairfield

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

41.14°N
73.26°W
EST

Color scheme