9P/Tempel reaches its brightest

Comet 9P/Tempel is forecast to reach its brightest, at around mag 11.8. It will lie at a distance of 1.56 AU from the Sun, and at a distance of 1.29 AU from the Earth.

From London (click to change) however, it will not be observable – it will reach its highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 9° above the horizon at dusk.

For more information about its path across the sky, see In-The-Sky.org’s ephemeris page for comet 9P/Tempel.

This event was automatically generated on the basis of orbital elements published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), and is updated daily (last update, 20 Dec 2015).

Note that the future positions of comets are typically known with a high degree of confidence, but their brightnesses are often much more unpredictable, since it is impossible to predict with certainty how they will respond as they move closer to the Sun. Magnitude estimates should be assumed to be highly provisional more than a few weeks in advance.

The exact position of comet 9P/Tempel will be:

The coordinates are given in J2000.0.