Skjellerup is a comet in the Comet orbit class. Its orbit takes it from 1.15 AU to 386.05 AU from the Sun; one orbit takes 2,693.7 years. Orbit from the JPL solution of 15 April 2021.
Where is it now
- Distance from Sun
- 116.246 AU
- True anomaly
- 170.46°
- Distance from Earth
- 116.869 AU
- As of
- 24 October 2026
Two-body Kepler propagation — accurate to ~0.1% for major planets over decades, less so for highly-perturbed bodies. Use JPL Horizons for high precision.
In the sky
- Right ascension
- 17h 26m 02s
- Declination
- -12° 53′ 09″
- Constellation
- Serpens
- Distance from Earth
- 116.88 AU
- Elongation from the Sun
- 50.21° — near the Sun — look low at dusk or dawn
Visible from both hemispheres.
From your location
See how high it is right now, whether it is up after civil twilight, and when it rises and sets where you are.
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Two-body approximation, good to about a degree for the planets — enough to find the constellation and know whether it is up.
Orbital elements
- Semi-major axis
- 193.597 AU
- Eccentricity
- 0.9941
- Inclination
- 22.03°
- Orbital period
- 2,693.7 years
- Perihelion
- 1.148 AU
- Aphelion
- 386.046 AU
- Longitude of ascending node
- 108.83°
- Argument of periapsis
- 340.89°
- Epoch · J2000
- 2422700.5
- Orbit class · COM
- Comet
- Earth MOID · 71.6 LD
- 0.184 AU
- Tisserand (Jupiter)
- 1.257
Orbit quality
- Observations used
- 5
- Data arc
- 44 days
- First observed
- 19 December 1920
- Last observed
- 1 February 1921
- Residual RMS
- 4.71 ″
- Solution · Otto Matic
- 15 April 2021
Discovery & classification
Also known as 1920 X1
Sources
- orbital elements: JPL SBDB