C/1879 Q1 (Palisa)
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Johann Palisa |
| Discovery site | Pula, Croatia |
| Discovery date | 21 August 1879 |
| Designations | |
| 1879d[1] 1879 V | |
| Orbital characteristics[2] | |
| Epoch | 25 September 1879 (JD 2407617.5) |
| Observation arc | 48 days |
| Number of observations | 12 |
| Perihelion | 0.9895 AU |
| Eccentricity | ~1.000 |
| Inclination | 77.12° |
| 88.87° | |
| Argument of periapsis | 115.48° |
| Last perihelion | 5 October 1879 |
| Earth MOID | 0.3021 AU |
| Jupiter MOID | 0.8980 AU |
| Physical characteristics[3] | |
| Comet total magnitude (M1) | 8.0 |
| 5.5 (1879 apparition) | |
Palisa's Comet, also known formally as C/1879 Q1 by its modern nomenclature, is a parabolic comet that was barely visible to the naked eye in late 1879. It was the only comet discovered by Austrian astronomer, Johann Palisa.
Discovery and observations
[edit]Johann Palisa discovered this comet on 21 August 1879, initially mistaking it for a nebula not recorded in the catalogs of Messier and d'Arrest before confirming the object's motion a few hours later.[3] At the time it was located within the constellation Ursa Major,[a] where he described the comet as "round, small, but bright".[3] One of the first ephemerides of the comet were calculated on September 5.[4]
The comet was moving inbound through the inner Solar System between September and October 1879, enabling further observations and refining orbital calculations.[3] Pietro Tacchini measured the coma diameter as 1.7' on October 7.[5] Ralph Copeland described the comet as "bright and round" on October 19 while measuring the comet's spectra.[6]
References
[edit]Notes
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ "Comet Names and Designations". International Comet Quarterly. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ "C/1879 Q1 (Palisa) – JPL Small-Body Database Lookup". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ a b c d e G. W. Kronk (2003). Cometography: A Catalog of Comets. Vol. 2: 1800–1899. Cambridge University Press. pp. 445–447. ISBN 978-0-521-58505-7.
- ^ L. Lindsay (1879). "Palisa's Comet" (PDF). Nature. 20: 455. doi:10.1038/020455b0.
- ^ P. Tacchini (1879). "Observations of Comet Palisa, made with the Merz Equatoreal of the Collegio Romano" (PDF). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 40 (2): 72–73. doi:10.1093/mnras/40.2.72.
- ^ L. Lindsay (1879). "Observations of the Spectrum of Comet 1879 d (Palisa)" (PDF). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 40 (1): 23–25. doi:10.1093/mnras/40.1.23.
External links
[edit]- C/1879 Q1 at the JPL Small-Body Database
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