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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

Not currently visible. Last report 1488 days ago at mag 18.3. Historic peak was mag 16.8. Typical backyard telescopes will not show it. HST, JWST, or an 8–10 m class telescope might recover it with a good ephemeris.

Active comet in COBS

JSONCSV

Right ascension

06h 46m 59s

J2000

Declination

+26° 09′ 08″

J2000

Estimated magnitude

18.3

Professional survey · COBS consensus

Confidence

33

Class E · priority 60

Observations

18

Arc unknown

Last observation

1488d ago

Sun, 21 Aug 2022 03:54:00 GMT · COBS consensus

Perihelion

2026-12-07

2.330 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

just now

Venator last wrote this row 2026-09-17 00:00:08 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

2.330 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

73°

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.