Comet 51P/Harrington

Comet 51P/Harrington is currently in the constellation of Virgo. The current Right Ascension of Comet 51P/Harrington is 13h 46m 47s and the Declination is -06° 56’ 16” (topocentric coordinates computed for the selected location: Greenwich, United Kingdom [change]). The current estimated magnitude of Comet 51P/Harrington is 26.06 (JPL).

Summary of key facts about Comet 51P/Harrington [tip: you can also create a Quick Access page for this data if you access it frequently and would like to have a simpler view]:

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Additional information about Comet 51P/Harrington available on TheSkyLive:

Available Resources

• Position and finder charts (see also Where is Comet 51P/Harrington?)
• Distance from Earth (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.

Higher precision deep sky finder chart, 60 arcmin wide, showing where Comet 51P/Harrington is right now. Click on the image to see a more detailed fullscreen tracker view.

Also check out Where is Comet 51P/Harrington?, a page that provides all the information needed to find Comet 51P/Harrington in the sky and additional links to sky charts.

Comet 51P/Harrington Distance from Earth

The distance of Comet 51P/Harrington from Earth is currently 866,727,754 kilometers, equivalent to 5.793717 Astronomical Units. Light takes 48 minutes and 11.0926 seconds to travel from Comet 51P/Harrington and arrive to us.

The following chart shows the distance of Comet 51P/Harrington from Earth as a function of time. In the chart the distance data is measured in Astronomical Units and sampled with an interval of 1 day.

The value of the reported distance might be somewhat inaccurate around the times of closest approach for objects passing extremely close to Earth. The value of the distance of 51P/Harrington from Earth is also available as a real time updated value in the Live Position and Data Tracker.

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 0.719963 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 26.06.

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 Oct 20	13h 40m 15s	-06° 17’ 48”	26.12	Virgo
2020 Oct 21	13h 41m 07s	-06° 22’ 51”	26.11	Virgo
2020 Oct 22	13h 41m 57s	-06° 27’ 55”	26.10	Virgo
2020 Oct 23	13h 42m 48s	-06° 32’ 56”	26.10	Virgo
2020 Oct 24	13h 43m 40s	-06° 37’ 58”	26.09	Virgo
2020 Oct 25	13h 44m 30s	-06° 42’ 57”	26.08	Virgo
2020 Oct 26	13h 45m 21s	-06° 47’ 57”	26.07	Virgo
2020 Oct 27	13h 46m 13s	-06° 52’ 55”	26.07	Virgo
2020 Oct 28	13h 47m 03s	-06° 57’ 52”	26.06	Virgo
2020 Oct 29	13h 47m 56s	-07° 02’ 49”	26.05	Virgo
2020 Oct 30	13h 48m 47s	-07° 07’ 45”	26.04	Virgo
2020 Oct 31	13h 49m 37s	-07° 12’ 41”	26.04	Virgo
2020 Nov 01	13h 50m 29s	-07° 17’ 34”	26.03	Virgo
2020 Nov 02	13h 51m 20s	-07° 22’ 27”	26.02	Virgo