Great Comet of 1823

C/1823 Y1
	Coma and twin tails of the Great Comet of 1823.
Discovery
Discovered by	Nell de Bréauté
Discovery date	December 29, 1823
Designations
Alternative designations	1823; Great Comet of 1823, Comet De Bréauté-Pons
Orbital characteristics
Epoch	1824 Feb 15.0(UT)
Perihelion	0.226742 AU
Eccentricity	1.0
Inclination	103.8194 °
Last perihelion	1823 Dec 09.93400000

The Great Comet of 1823, also designated C/1823 Y1 or Comet De Bréauté-Pons, was a bright comet visible in the last month of 1823 and the first months of 1824.

It was independently discovered by Nell de Bréauté at Dieppe on December 29, by Jean-Louis Pons on the morning of December 30, and by Wilhelm von Biela at Prague on the same morning.^[2] It was already visible to the naked eye when discovered: Pons initially thought he was seeing smoke from a chimney rising over a hill, but continued observing when he noticed it did not change appearance. He was later to note that the comet was, puzzlingly, more easily visible to the naked eye than through a telescope.^[3]

The comet was particularly known at the time for exhibiting two tails, one pointing away from the Sun and the other (termed an "anomalous tail" by Harding and Olbers)^[4] pointing towards it.

Caroline Herschel recorded an observation of the comet on January 31, 1824 as the last entry in her observing book.^[5]

Pons was also the last astronomer to detect the comet, on April 1, 1824.

References

^ Alan Chamberlin. "JPL Small-Body Database Browser". Ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
^ Kronk, G. Cometography: volume 2, CUP, 2003, pp.62-3. Some sources give December 24 as its discovery date, but this may be an error.
^ Kronk, p.64
^ Sekanina, Z.; Hanner, M. S.; Jessberger, E. K.; Fomenkova, M. N. (2001). "Cometary Dust". In Grun, E.; Gustafson, B. A. S.; Dermott, S. F.; Fechtig, H. (eds.). Interplanetary Dust. Heidelberg: Springer. p. 112. ISBN 3-540-42067-3.
^ Olson, Roberta J. M.; Pasachoff, Jay M. (2012). "The Comets of Caroline Herschel (1750–1848), Sleuth of the Skies at Slough". Culture and Cosmos. 16 (1–2): 9. arXiv:1212.0809. Bibcode:2012arXiv1212.0809O. doi:10.46472/CC.01216.0213. S2CID 117934098.