Celestial calendar COMETS In 2003 the 21 periodical comets will return to perihelions. But they can not be visible with the naked eye.

Name	Perihelion Time	Period (years)	Number of appearance	Perihelion Distance (A.U.)	Eccentricity	Magnitude (max)
116P/Wild 4	Jan. 12	6.48	2	2.17	0.38	11.9m
C/2001 RX 14, LINEAR	Jan. 18	8	1	2.06	1.00	10m
79P/du Toit-Hartley	Feb. 15	5.27	4	1.23	0.59	>17m
P/1992 Q1 (Brewington)**	Feb. 19	10.66	1	1.59	0.67	10.3m
D/1978 C2 (Tritton)	Mar. 6	6.35	1	2.16	0.41	>17m
P/2001 YX127 (LINEAR)	Mar. 13	8.54	1	3.42	0.18	<21m
65P/Gunn	May 12	6.80	5	2.45	0.32	11.7m
25D/Neuimin 2*	May 26	5.43	2	1.27	0.59	<15m
127P/Holt-Olmstead	June 12	6.34	2	2.16	0.37	<18m
36P/Whipple	July 7	8.51	10	3.09	0.26	>17m
C/2001 HT50 (LINEAR-NEAT)	July 9	38240	1	2.79	1.00	<13m
118P/Shoemaker-Levy 4	July 17	6.49		2.01	0.42
100P/Hartley 1	Aug. 18	6.29	3	1.98	0.42	<16m
66P/du Toit	Aug. 28	14.70		1.27	0.79
94P/Russell 4	Aug. 29	6.58	3	2.23	0.36	<17m
C/2002 J5 (LINEAR)	Sept. 19	8	1	5.73	1.00	<19m
81P/Wild 2	Sept. 26	6.40	4	1.59	0.54	>13m
C/2002 J4 (NEAT)	Oct. 3	8	1	3.63	1.0	>22m
53P/Van Biesbroeck**	Oct. 9	12.52	4	2.42	0.55	>13.7m
123P/West-Hartley	Dec. 9	7.58	2	2.13	0.45	13.6m
2P/Encle	Dec. 30	3.30	58	0.34	0.85	6.35m

* Jupiter comet family ** Saturn comet family

Glossary Astronomical Unit (A.U.): middle distance from Earth to Sun, equal 149.6 millions km. Eccentricity: a parameter that specifies the shape of a conic section; one of the standard elements used to describe an elliptic orbit. Perihelion:: the point at which a body in orbit around the Sun most closely approaches the Sun. Period: the interval of time required to complete one revolution in an orbit or one cycle of a periodic phenomenon, such as a cycle of phases.

Note: All the times in this page are expressed in universal time (UT). For Kyiv Local_Time=UT+2h (and Local_Time=UT+3h for summer time).