Observed magnitude preferredWe retrieve visual observations from COBS from the previous 90 days, take the median of up to the five newest valid reports, and show the newest report's age. Observations older than 60 days are dimmed to flag reduced confidence.
Estimated magnitude est.When no observed magnitude is available, the session-midpoint estimate ism = H + 5 log₁₀(Δ) + K log₁₀(r), where H and K are the comet's COBS total-magnitude parameters, Δ is its distance from Earth, and r is its distance from the Sun (distances in AU). If K is unavailable, 4.0 is used.
Cloudflare WorkerDaily · 18:00 UTC
A scheduled Worker refreshes our comet data fromCOBS. It retrieves active orbital elements and filtered observer reports from the previous 90 days, matches them by comet designation, calculates the median of up to the five newest reports, and stores both datasets in Cloudflare KV. The planner reads this cached result instead of querying COBS separately for every visitor.
·Astro Imaging Planner