The CTMC method is used to calculate emission cross sections following charge exchange processes involving highly charged ions of astrophysical interest and typical cometary targets. Comparison is made to experimental data obtained on the EBIT-I machine at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for O8+ projectiles impinging on different targets at a collision energy of 10 eV/amu. The theoretical cross sections are used together with ion abundances measured by the Advanced Composition Explorer to reproduce cometary spectra. Discrepancies due to different estimated delays of solar wind events between the comet and the Earth-orbiting satellite are discussed.