Home=Current Comets: C/2024 E1
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On Mar. 3, 2024, Kacper Wierzchos discovered a comet with the 1.5m reflector on Mt. Lemmon. The comet, positioned in the constellation Draco, showed a strongly condensed, 4" coma of total magnitude 20.0-20.5 and a 6" tail in p.a. 320°. At a distance of 8 AU at discovery comet C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos) will not pass perihelion at a solar distance of 0.56 AU until Jan. 21, 2026, then predicted to peak around magnitude 7 (CBET 5364). However, at this time the comet will be on the opposite side of the Sun relative to Earth, thus being positioned close to the Sun, making observations very difficult. It should be brighter than 16 mag between June 2025 and July 2026. During this period it will move through the constellations Draco, Hercules, Corona Borealis, Hercules, Ophiuchus, Serpens, Sagittarius (perihelion), Microscopium, Grus, Phoenix, Sculptor, Cetus, Eridanus, Taurus and Gemini. From Central European locations it can be seen in the evening sky until the end of November 2025 (then only 11 mag) and then again between the end of February (about 8 mag) and mid-May 2026 (about 13 mag).
Until the start of February 2026 the comet shows a very steady brightness increase. On Jan. 26, 2026 the comet peaked at 6.7 mag, based on 179 observations from 37 observers. The brightness development can be represented very well with the parameters
m0 = 8.6 mag / n = 3.5.Thus it should be an object of magnitude 8.0 at the time it will appear in the Central European evening sky at the end of February 2026.
Total Brightness and Coma Diameter
The coma diameter increased from 0.4' (85,000 km) at the beginning of the apparition to 2' (160,000 km) at the end of November 2025, measuring at least 6' (275,000 km) at the beginning of February 2026. While the coma was still rather diffuse (DC 3-4) in late summer/autumn 2025, it was much more condensed (DC 6) during the days around perihelion. A tail has been documented since March 2025. At the beginning of February 2026 it reached a length of about 2.5° (8 mio. km). In 2025 the orientation of the tail slowly changed from NW over South (June 2025) to NNE (Oct. 2025). Post-perihelion the tail is oriented towards SE, slowly rotating northwards.Andreas Kammerer
