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Early warning for newly discovered comets and unconfirmed objects.

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C/1952 Q1

C/1952 Q1 (Harrington)

CometClass Ecatalogued
Unknown

Not currently visible. Last report 26796 days ago at mag 38.6. Historic peak was mag 12.5. 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

—

J2000

Declination

—

J2000

Estimated magnitude

38.6

Professional survey · COBS consensus

Confidence

33

Class E · priority 60

Observations

75

Arc unknown

Last observation

26796d ago

Fri, 08 May 1953 07:40:48 GMT · COBS consensus

Perihelion

1953-02-11

1.640 au

Peak window

1952-12-15 → 1953-02-14

COBS peak mag 12.5 on 1952-12-18 · perihelion 1953-02-11. Window is those dates ±3 days — not a light-curve fit.

Historic peak

12.5

COBS / analyzed peak 1952-12-18

Catalog ingest

15h ago

Venator last wrote this row 2026-09-17 13:20:23 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

1.640 au

e

0.9950

i

59.90°

Ω

221.00°

ω

191.00°

a

—

MOID

—

H

—

H0 / n

—

NEO score

—

PHA score

—

RMS

—

Elongation

—

Reporting sources

  • COBS comet list

    ok

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

Name history

  • C/1952 Q1 (Harrington)

    Informal: Harrington

    C/1952 Q1 · 2026-09-14 18:27:57 UTC → current

Discoverers

  • Harrington

    Discoverer · parsed-name · 2026-09-14 18:27:57 UTC → current

Contributors

  • Albert F. Jones

    Visual Observer · JON · 31 reports · last 26796d ago

  • Max Beyer

    Visual Observer · BEY · 24 reports · last 26861d ago

  • F. K. Usmanova

    Visual Observer · USM · 9 reports · last 26889d ago

  • D. J. Martynoff

    Visual Observer · MAR23 · 6 reports · last 26885d ago

  • E. Dybai

    Visual Observer · DYB · 3 reports · last 26969d ago

  • I. S. Astapovich

    Visual Observer · AST · 2 reports · last 26909d ago

  • P. P. Savrukhin

    Visual Observer · SAV04 · 2 reports · last 26935d ago

  • A. M. Bakcharev

    Visual Observer · BAK02 · 1 reports · last 26908d ago

  • E. K. Kharadze

    Visual Observer · KHA03 · 1 reports · last 26919d ago

  • Sh. T. Khabibulin

    Visual Observer · KHA04 · 1 reports · last 26891d ago

  • V. G. Rijves

    Visual Observer · RIJ · 1 reports · last 26945d ago

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