Comet 51P/Harrington

Available Resources

• Position (see also Where is Comet 51P/Harrington?)
• Distance (see also How far is Comet 51P/Harrington from Earth?)
• Rise and set times (see also When does Comet 51P/Harrington rise and set?)
• Brightness (see also How bright is Comet 51P/Harrington?)
• 15 days ephemerides. Table showing celestial coordinates and magnitude of Comet 51P/Harrington for the past and next 7 days.
• Interactive sky chart. An online planetarium application that shows where to locate Comet 51P/Harrington in the sky from your location.
• Live position tracker. A high precision sky chart that uses real deep sky imagery to help locate Comet 51P/Harrington with your telescope or on your astrophotographies.

Closest approach of Comet 51P/Harrington to Earth

Between January 2013 and December 2100 the closest approach of Comet 51P/Harrington to Earth happens on Mon Sep 5 2022 at a distance of 0.71996295 Astronomical Units, or 107,704,924 kilometers:

NOTE: values for the closest approach are computed with a sampling interval of 1 day.

Comet 51P/Harrington brightness

The current visual magnitude of Comet 51P/Harrington is 26.32.

The observed magnitude and coma diameter values are derived from the Comet Observers Database by averaging the values reported in recent observations (more recent than 4 days), when available. The Estimated Magnitude comes from the JPL Horizons ephemerides service and might be inaccurate given the highly dynamic and unpredictable behavior of comets. When available, please refer to the Observed Magnitude value and consider the Estimated Magnitude as a directional indication. We acknowledge with thanks the comet observations from the COBS Comet Observation Database contributed by observers worldwide and used in this table to report recent comet observations.

The following chart is the predicted light curve (visual magnitude as a function of time) of Comet 51P/Harrington, according to the most recent ephemerides data. Magnitude data is sampled with a 2 days interval and there might be inaccuracies for objects changing brightness very rapidly during the course of a few days. For comets there could be large discrepancies between the observed and predicted brightness because of their highly dynamic behaviour.

Comet 51P/Harrington rise and set times

Today's Comet 51P/Harrington rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, United Kingdom [change] are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

The rise and set times are defined as the time at which the upper limb of Comet 51P/Harrington touches the horizon, considering the effect of the atmospheric refraction. As the atmospheric conditions cannot be modeled precisely the times reported here should be considered correct with an approximation of few minutes.

Comet 51P/Harrington 15 Days Ephemeris

The following table lists the ephemerides of Comet 51P/Harrington computed for the past and next 7 days, with a 24 hours interval. Click on each row of the table to locate Comet 51P/Harrington in our Online Planetarium at the chosen date.

Date	Right AscensionR.A.	DeclinationDec.	MagnitudeMag	Constellation
2020 Apr 01	12h 58m 21s	+00° 35’ 47”	26.35	Virgo
2020 Apr 02	12h 57m 46s	+00° 39’ 24”	26.34	Virgo
2020 Apr 03	12h 57m 11s	+00° 43’ 00”	26.34	Virgo
2020 Apr 04	12h 56m 35s	+00° 46’ 36”	26.34	Virgo
2020 Apr 05	12h 56m 00s	+00° 50’ 11”	26.33	Virgo
2020 Apr 06	12h 55m 26s	+00° 53’ 43”	26.33	Virgo
2020 Apr 07	12h 54m 50s	+00° 57’ 14”	26.32	Virgo
2020 Apr 08	12h 54m 15s	+01° 00’ 42”	26.32	Virgo
2020 Apr 09	12h 53m 39s	+01° 04’ 09”	26.32	Virgo
2020 Apr 10	12h 53m 04s	+01° 07’ 35”	26.31	Virgo
2020 Apr 11	12h 52m 29s	+01° 10’ 57”	26.31	Virgo
2020 Apr 12	12h 51m 55s	+01° 14’ 17”	26.31	Virgo
2020 Apr 13	12h 51m 20s	+01° 17’ 35”	26.30	Virgo
2020 Apr 14	12h 50m 45s	+01° 20’ 50”	26.30	Virgo