A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - comet 1840

 Nature March 16^th 1876

Comet 1840

In Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 2079, Dr Kowalczyk, of Warsaw, publishes I his investigation of a definitive orbit for the comet discovered at Berlin by prof Galle, the present Director pf the observatory at Breslau, on the 25^th January 1840.

This comet which was last observed at Kremsmunster on the 1^st April, had already been made the subject of extensive calculation b y Professors Plantamour and Loomis. The former in 1843, discussing his own series of careful observations taken at Geneva, found (Astron Nach, No. 476) that a parabolic orbit represented the comet’s course within the probable limits of error of observation; on including the series taken at Berlin he found the most probable orbit to be an ellipse, but of great eccentricity  to which little weight was considered to attach.

Loomis on his side, taking into account the effect of planetary perturbation  during the interval of the comet’ visibility, also found an ellipse, but with a mote moderate eccentricity, the period of revolution being about 2,400 years; the sum of the squares of  the errors of the ellipse is diminished to one third the amount with the best determinable parabola.

Loomis’s investigation will be found in the Transactions of the American Academy vol viii; his orbits are not in the included in the extensive collection in Dr Carl’s “Repertorium der Cometen-Astronomie”, a work which notwithstanding, its great utility  to the student of this branch of science, is yet not complete or free from numerical errors.

Kowalczyk starts with the parabolic elements obtained by Plantamour in 1843, comparing them with the whole course of observations. After introducing the corrections for aberrations and parallax , and the earth’s position from Leverrier’s tables, instead of those from the tables of Carlini used by previous computers and by the usual method of equations of conditions for ten normal places, he finally arrives at an elliptical orbit, very closely agreeing with observations, and showing a period of revolution of 3,789

                                                     www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

 years.