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Early warning for newly discovered comets and unconfirmed objects.

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P/2009 Y2

P/2009 Y2 (Kowalski)

CometClass Ecatalogued
Northern hemisphere

Difficult — CCD / large telescope. Around mag 17.7. A large amateur CCD or a professional telescope is required.

Active comet in COBS

JSONCSV

Right ascension

04h 57m 15s

J2000

Declination

+38° 46′ 04″

J2000

Estimated magnitude

17.7

CCD / citizen telescope · COBS consensus

Confidence

33

Class E · priority 66

Observations

3

Arc unknown

Last observation

29d ago

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:34:00 GMT · COBS consensus

Perihelion

2026-12-13

2.370 au

Peak window

2026-12-06 → 2026-12-16

COBS peak mag 17.5 on 2026-12-09 · perihelion 2026-12-13. Window is those dates ±3 days — not a light-curve fit.

Historic peak

17.5

COBS / analyzed peak 2026-12-09

Catalog ingest

23m ago

Venator last wrote this row 2026-11-07 03:30:20 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

2.370 au

e

0.6380

i

30.00°

Ω

262.00°

ω

172.00°

a

6.540 au

MOID

—

H

—

H0 / n

13.0 / 4

NEO score

—

PHA score

—

RMS

—

Elongation

144°

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

  • P/2009 Y2 (Kowalski)

    Informal: Kowalski

    P/2009 Y2 · 2026-09-13 22:21:22 UTC → current

Discoverers

  • Kowalski

    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.