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Venator

Early warning for newly discovered comets and unconfirmed objects.

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266P

266P/Christensen

CometClass Ecatalogued
Northern hemisphere

Difficult — CCD / large telescope. Around mag 17.5. A large amateur CCD or a professional telescope is required.

Active comet in COBS

JSONCSV

Right ascension

07h 59m 27s

J2000

Declination

+25° 02′ 52″

J2000

Estimated magnitude

17.5

CCD / citizen telescope · COBS consensus

Confidence

33

Class E · priority 66

Observations

18

Arc unknown

Last observation

3d ago

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 09:44:00 GMT · COBS consensus

Perihelion

2026-12-07

2.320 au

Peak window

2026-12-04 → 2027-01-14

COBS peak mag 16.8 on 2027-01-11 · perihelion 2026-12-07. Window is those dates ±3 days — not a light-curve fit.

Historic peak

16.8

COBS / analyzed peak 2027-01-11

Catalog ingest

12m ago

Venator last wrote this row 2026-11-07 03:00:09 UTC

Light curve

Brightness over time (V mag)

Gold = reported observations. Steel dashed family = ensemble (nominal / outburst / fade / disruption).

Tail length

Converted to degrees from COBS (d / arcmin / arcsec). Empty until analysis has pulled the archive.

No tail measures stored yet for this object.

Ensemble is a first-pass H0/n photometric model plus observed samples — not a trained ML forecast yet. The background analyzer walks the catalog one object at a time so COBS is not flooded. Disruption track rises after perihelion to stand in for solar-wind stripping.

Orbital elements

q

2.320 au

e

0.3410

i

3.43°

Ω

4.98°

ω

97.80°

a

3.530 au

MOID

—

H

—

H0 / n

12.5 / 4

NEO score

—

PHA score

—

RMS

—

Elongation

107°

Reporting sources

  • COBS comet list

    ok

    Comet Observation Database magnitudes and perihelion data for the full COBS list (active and inactive).

  • COBS orbits

    ok

    Osculating elements and photometric parameters (H0, n) for active comets.

Name history

  • 266P/Christensen

    266P · 2026-09-13 22:21:22 UTC → current

Discoverers

  • Christensen

    Discoverer · parsed-name · 2026-09-13 22:21:22 UTC → current

Contributors

Pips are observation weight on this object (log of report count). Hover for catalog-wide weight.