68P/Klemola or Klemola's Comet is a Jupiter-family comet that was discovered in 1965 by American astronomer Arnold Richard Klemola in Argentinian Yale-Columbia Southern Station.
Observational history It was observed at the next predicted apparition by Gérard Sause at the Observatoire de Haute Provence, France on 6 August 1976 with a brightness of magnitude 12. It was successfully observed in 1987 when J. Gibson of the Palomar Observatory, California, obtained images with the 1.5-meter reflector on 16 February. It appeared essentially stellar, with a faint magnitude of 19. It was observed again on 29 March 1997 by Carl W. Hergenrother at the F. L. Whipple Observatory, with perihelion on 1 May 1998. 68P came to opposition on 14 June 2019 and perihelion on 9 November 2019. During this apparition, the comet exhibited intermediate level of activity relative to other known Jupiter-family comets like 78P/Gehrels.
Orbit Orbital reconstruction of the comet in 2024 revealed that 68P/Klemola entered the JFC region only a thousand years ago, and is still a relatively young comet as a result.
References
External links 68P/Klemola at the JPL Small-Body Database 68P/Klemola at Gary W. Kronk's Cometography 68P/Klemola at Seiichi Yoshida's website