Observations
From May to August, the comet's position made it difficult to spot because of its low altitude and the evening twilight. Both Flaguergues and Olbers were able to recover it in Leo Minor during August, Olbers noting a small but distinct tail, consisting of two rays forming a parabola, when viewing through a comet seeker. By September, in Ursa Major, it was becoming a conspicuous object in the evening sky as it approached perihelion: William Herschel noted that a tail 25° long had developed by October 6.
By January 1812, the comet's brightness had faded. Several astronomers continued to obtain telescopic observations for some months, the last being Vincent Wisniewski at Novocherkassk, who noted it as barely reaching an apparent magnitude of 11 by August 12.
The Great Comet of 1811 was thought to have had an exceptionally large coma, perhaps reaching over 1 million miles across—fifty percent larger than the Sun. The comet's nucleus was later estimated at 30–40 km in diameter and the orbital period was calculated at 3,757 years (later adjusted to 3,065 years). In many ways the comet was quite similar to Comet Hale-Bopp: it became spectacular without passing particularly close to either the Earth or the Sun, but had an extremely large and active nucleus.
Read more about this topic: Great Comet Of 1811
Famous quotes containing the word observations:
“The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled “a contemplative man’s recreation,” introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist’s observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man’s recreation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The truth is, the Science of Nature has been already too long made only a work of the brain and the fancy: It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of observations on material and obvious things.”
—Robert Hooke (1635–1703)
“I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)